Australia's Science Forum

We have about 20 of these things in our store, they have been here for longer than the staff and I'm assuming that they were part of a physics prac.
Solid brass, 5 x 5 x 2cm. Central hole 13mm in diam. running from top to bottom, holes on all 4 sides -2 of which accomodate screws that when turned decrease size of central hole. One side of the block has an extra hole that can be plugged with a metal plug ,protruding from which is a 2cm wire rod. Weight = 490.64g
I have a photo of this on my IPAD, am I allowed to post it on this forum?

Help please, having unidentifiable equipment really gets my goat.

Sounds like a capstan block. Used with levers.

Yes you are allowed to post pictures but like Whspa said, it sounds like a capstan block. We have these too. I'm not allowed to throw them out but I have not seen them used in the 6 years I have been here.

RosalieM wrote:Yes you are allowed to post pictures but like Whspa said, it sounds like a capstan block. We have these too. I'm not allowed to throw them out but I have not seen them used in the 6 years I have been here.

Yep 17 years, never seen them used, wouldn't know how!!!!!!

We used them when I first started here for doing levers with year 9,in the topic Simple machines. . The topic was taken out of the NSW curriculum but I think with the national curriculum we will be doing it again. We would put the capstan block on the retort stand then use a ruler with a hole to suspend from the capstan block. Ypu would then suspend mass carriers and masses from it and look at levers.

Lorrae

yep - smae same ... I have lots of little things stored that I have never seen used .. I dont think new teachers know how to use them.
I have been trying to get my staff to use multi-meters.. only one will do so, the rest won't because they don't know how they work... seems like a lesson coming up

If you have the Capstan Blocks, you should also have a lot of 1meter wooden rulers with small holes drilled all the way down the centre, which will fit the metal rod that you mentioned. The Capstan Block fits on to a Retort Stand and is secured by one of the screws.

Even without the "Simple Machines" unit, they can be used to make a simple comparison balance to weigh, say , an air filled balloon and compare the weight with a deflated balloon, etc (Air and Atmosphere Unit)

Cheers
Ian

The metre rule with holes in it, is called a Boxwood lever.

Thankyou.

....but it LOOKS like a metre rule with holes drilled in it!!!

Have a great weekend!
Ian