Quest for good fine-tipped forceps - completed.

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Beatsy
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Quest for good fine-tipped forceps - completed.

Post by Beatsy »

I won't bore you with the trouble I had trying to find some decent fine-tipped forceps over the years - but it has been difficult. Just letting folks know that the cheap Chinese titanium forceps I received today are simply brilliant, the best fine forceps I own (now).

The extremely fine tips align perfectly and close up right at the very end first (unlike some which touch further down such that the tips never really close). They were only £26 for 3 pairs with shipping. Some of the brand-name titanium micro-surgery forceps cost way over £100 a pair!

In summary: highly recommended if you need this kind of thing. Just search for titanium forceps on Ebay, they're quite distinctive.

Image

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

For delicate things these can be great, if anyone doesn't know them:
Fine and blunt:
http://www.nhbs.com/title/view/177512

Also look at their "featherweight" forceps. Weight is 3g .
http://www.nhbs.com/title/196101/featherweight-forceps
Chris R

Beatsy
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Post by Beatsy »

Stop it! I have a small drawer practically dedicated to forceps as it is :)

I didn't know you could get "gentle" forceps like that. I put a small piece of blu-tack between the handles to help control pressure when gripping delicate things. But maybe I need some watch spring forceps after all...

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

Beatsy and ChrisR, thanks for these! I also look far and wide for small tweezers for my dissections. I had not known about these.

While on the subject, small scissors are also useful, and I've found a fairly good solution: surgical scissors designed for eye surgery.

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

AH, you mean objective hood scissors? - used as a prop a couple of years ago.
Chris R

zzffnn
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Post by zzffnn »

Thank you, Beats. I just bough one with the most acute angle.
Selling my Canon FD 200mm F/2.8 lens

Len Willan
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Post by Len Willan »

Congratulations on your outstanding work and details given on this forum.

The best tweezers are by Dumont, easily available from any good Horological (Watchmakers) supplier.

They are also used in micro surgery, and we use Numbers 3, 4, and & 7 for making Insect microscope dissections.

Inox are the most durable , but there are many more Dumont metal alloys to choose from depending on the purpose

A quick web search gives this as an example
https://www.google.com/search?q=dumont+ ... sL4P94b2rM
Len

Choronzon
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Post by Choronzon »

Thanks, Beatsy
I need some of those for my Puerto Rico rainforest fun trip with my family
I am not young enough to know everything.

ChrisR
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Post by ChrisR »

I have a boxful of Bergeon tweezers, which are good for hard parts.
Chris R

NikonUser
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Post by NikonUser »

I do a lot of insect dissections at x25 and x50 using a dissecting scope.
For this work I use Dumont #55 straight fine forceps, biology tip.
Tip dimensions: 0.05 x 0.02 mm
Cost $46.00 (Canadian)
Anything coarser than this would be not useable for my work.
NU.
student of entomology
Quote – Holmes on ‘Entomology’
” I suppose you are an entomologist ? “
” Not quite so ambitious as that, sir. I should like to put my eyes on the individual entitled to that name.
No man can be truly called an entomologist,
sir; the subject is too vast for any single human intelligence to grasp.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr
The Poet at the Breakfast Table.

Nikon camera, lenses and objectives
Olympus microscope and objectives

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

ChrisR, no, those are HUGE!!!! Eye surgery scissors have less than 1/5 the blade size of those.

Troels
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Post by Troels »

Beatsy,
If the holes in your chineese titanium foreceps have the right size compared to your fingertips, you might be able to feel your fingertips meeting through the holes just when the points of the foreceps meet. That creates a very usefull tactile feed back beeing handy when handling small living and/or fragile insects.

I have a pair of cheap plastic foreceps with another (easyly adaptable) tactile feed back: a little pin at one leg passes through a hole in the other leg. When the points of the foreceps meet I can feel the tip of the pin against my thump and adjust the pressure very precisely accordingly.

Troels
Troels Holm, biologist (retired), environmentalist, amateur photographer.
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Planapo
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Post by Planapo »

Beatsy,
Do you happen to have Dumonts No.5 or No.55 in your drawer for comparison? Otherwise your quest might not be completed yet?! :wink:

Swiss made Dumonts are kind of a high-end lab standard, presumably for some reason.

The tips of my needle-sharp #5 are the same as those of #55 that NU uses but my #5 seems to have more massive handles/shanks. Besides, #5 can be ordered in a larger variety of versions, e.g. made of various metal alloys, including titanium :) , and with other tip sizes.

See:
http://www.finescience.de/katalog_ansic ... etfilter=1

These are fine tools.
I occasionally also use my No. 5 to give friends and family members "a treat" :) when extracting tiny splinters from fingers etc.

--Betty

Hello again! I'm sorry, it's been a while ...
Atticus Finch: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view
- until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
Lee, N. H. 1960. To Kill a Mockingbird. J. B. Lippincott, New York.

Beatsy
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Post by Beatsy »

Thanks for all the comments folks. Looks like Dumonts have a pretty big fan-base and they are less pricey than some brands (though I still got my 3 Chinese ones for well under the cost of one pair of Dumont tweezers).

Looks like Dumont #5's are in my near future though - you've sold me. Not 'cos I need them that much, but they are *very* fine tipped (much finer than the Chinese ones), so I'd no doubt find a use for them.

Lou - do you have a link to the scissors you were talking about? The ones I found all seem quite blunt-tipped (logical for eye surgery I guess), but I'd like some with a fine, sharp point if they're available.

Cheers
Beats

Edit: Dumont #5 titanium are £43.50 from UK suppliers and e37.50 from Germany but with pretty high delivery costs. I think I'll wait until I really need them after all.

Troels
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Post by Troels »

If your forceps are not fine tipped enough you can always sharpen them with a very fine grinding stone. Just remember to keep the points together while you grind.

During my thesis on freshwater entomology I had to extract the tiny mouthparts (maxilles and mandibles) from 10 mm long mayfly nymphs and mount them on microscope slides to veryfy the identification.

They were so small that I had to sharpen my new Dumont #3 until the points looked sharp in a Leitz stereomicroscope at 30x mag.

Troels
Troels Holm, biologist (retired), environmentalist, amateur photographer.
Visit my Flickr albums

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