Syringes and needles

Received advice from a US based friend, who talks about injecting Vaseline, using a hypodermic syringe, preferably with a 25 gauge needle (like a B-D 3ml 25G1 from CVS). That means nothing to me, and I'm not even sure that 25 gauge in the UK is the same as 25 gauge in the US. A quick Google suggests that UK orange needles are 25 gauge, but is that the same as the US size? It would need to be fairly large, to inject Vaseline.

No, this is not to inject Vaseline into a body :-)

Reply to
Graeme
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Warmed up, Vaseline is quite runny.

Reply to
Skipweasel

Graeme ( snipped-for-privacy@nospam.demon.co.uk) wibbled on Sunday 06 March 2011 20:29:

Here you go (down the bottom of the page):

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can buy them thre too...

Reply to
Tim Watts

Tim Watts ( snipped-for-privacy@dionic.net) wibbled on Sunday 06 March 2011 20:52:

Looking at that, 10 guage is 3.4mm OD - bloody hell, where do they stick that? Ow...

Graphic descripions from people who've had odd diseases NOT required! ;->

Reply to
Tim Watts

That, to me, means a 25AWG needle that is 1 inch long. There's not much difference between SWG and AWG at that size (SWG = 0.020in dia, AWG=0.018in dia). Getting Vaseline through a needle that fine is going to be hmm, "fun". FWIW, I practiced in my youth injecting vaccines emulsified in peanut oil. That mixture has about the consistency of Vaseline and it's just possible to inject it intradermally using a 25AWG orange needle.

I think so for needles, they are quoted in the same size both sides of the pond and the sizes are AWG.

Well, yes, it would be easier with a large needle. However depending on where and what you are injecting it into a large needle may be impossible to use. If you want an easier job I would use a 16AWG (cream) needle, provided that you can get away with using one that large. Also if the application doesn't need a sterile sharp I would consider cutting off the point. For cream needles this is easy to do with a Swan Morton scalpel or (presumably) a box cutter. Lay the needle on a block of wood with the hub hanging over the edge of the block. Place the blade a few mm behind the sharp tip and roll the needle backwards and forward by moving the blade in a sawing action so that you get a groove all around the needle. Then grasp the tip with a pair of pliers and bend it sharply. The tip should break off cleanly. The needle should now be a lot safer to use if you are using a syringe as a baby grease gun.

Selecting a syringe size and make is critical. I found that the clear (not polypropylene) syringes worked best under sustained pressure. Obviously you need to use the narrowest syringe possible for the job. I used to use 10ml syringes and I have used up to a 30ml syringe. Larger than that and the area of the plunger is too great. You will also find that if you squeeze too hard that the contents of the syringe will blow back around the rubber bung in the barrel.

Don't use insulin syringes. They're useless for this sort of job.

I'm intrigued.

Reply to
Steve Firth

I think some of the larger sizes are used for recreational body modification

Owain

Reply to
Owain

Normally they are for large animal veterinary use. However, skeletal muscle biopsy needles, used in sports training, come in sizes 4-6mm, while minimally invasive surgery trocars can be 10mm bore.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
Nightjar

On 06/03/2011 21:05, Steve Firth wrote: ...

It would be an awful lot easier to buy a blunt cannula to begin with.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
Nightjar

It is going to be very difficult to push something with the consistency of vaseline down a 25g needle. If you do have to use something that fine, make it as short as possible. Also, make sure both syringe and needle have Luer lock fitting. That holds the needle onto the syringe under pressure. You can buy syringes with simple Luer (aka Luer slip) fittings, but they are for drawing fluids up, not injecting.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
Nightjar

You always were.

>
Reply to
Mr Pounder

Well not really if one already has the needle but does not have a cannula and it's cheaper to use a needle. It's also how we used to do it before people got soft and had to have everything handed to them on a plate.

Reply to
Steve Firth

Used to play with syringes as a boy. No, not drugs. A school friend's father was a doctor, and we used to get some from him to use as water pistols. They would work for an hour or two, and then the rubber plunger would get too stiff. I tried vaseline to lubricate it, but then the rubber instantly went to a sticky goo. An early lesson that oil based lubricants rot rubber.

Of course, they may be made from something else nowadays.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Filling cannulae should be no dearer than needles and have the advantage that the end is properly deburred.

You would need to be in the Guiness book of records to be old enough to predate the use of filling cannulae.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
Nightjar

It must be a secret and he is not going to tell us.

Reply to
F Murtz

Please feel free to provide some on-line suppliers and prices. And if done as I describe, the ends don't need deburring.

All the yers I worked in the business and not one time to I recall having any "filing cannulae" in the store cupboard. Plenty of syringes and needles though. Several fleixible canulae as well, but not that useful for this purpose and more expensive than needles.

Reply to
Steve Firth

As I made the things, I never needed to buy them. However, had I wanted to, I would probably have phoned a chap I knew at Rocket Medical, which is where I used to get syringes. Unfortunately, the link to their online needle and syringe catalogue download appears not to be working.

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sold my needle making business to these people and have no doubt they could supply reusable filling cannula, which would probably suit the OP's purpose better than disposable needles.

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And if

My experience is that the sharp edge produced if the tip broke off was a potential hazard on needles notched to make them more visible to ultrasound and we had to develop an alternative reflection system to avoid that.

My father used to make them when he was an apprentice and they were not a new product then.

What was in your store cupboard would depend upon what was ordered and, if you didn't requisition any, you wouldn't have had them.

A filling, blunt or drawing up cannula is simply a needle with a square cut end. As the name suggests, their purpose is to fill a syringe before fitting the hypodermic needle, to avoid possible contamination of the needle point.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
Nightjar

I suspect they are, as I used to use them for pushing solvents through fine needles, to clean the bore, and some of the things we used would have been very detrimental to rubber products.

I don't know whether they are still made, but the syringes I used to use for oiling models, about 50 years ago, were glass with ceramic plungers, which were resistant to just about anything, except applying too much pressure with too fine a needle fitted, which can result in a cracked glass.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
Nightjar

Same here.

Back in the 70s they were handed out like sweets, at the doctors surgery to pacify us kids. Maybe to get moi used to the idea of injections etc... Don't know what they were thinking of....

Reply to
Adrian C

someone to make a cannula for what sounds like a one off or limited number of uses project.

Heck and you think the OP is intending to image the needle using ultrasound?

product then.

How terribly nice for your father. I used to have gavage needles made for me by the Chaps in the bowels of the medical school. Oddly they always started with a sharp. I guess they didn't work to your father's admittedly high standards.

We had a technician to do that sort of thing.

Your grandmother just called. She said she needs another lesson on the application of partial vacuum to avian ova.

Reply to
Steve Firth

I understand the trick is to apply *negative* partial vacuum.

Reply to
Ronald Raygun

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