Chromatography Forum

Hello,

Have any of you had any luck with an improvised capillary column cutter?

It seems like a ceramic sharpening stone with an acute edge, or a diamond knife sharpener should be good enough to score the column for a clean break.

Or a watchmaker's file, or hard knife blade, or glaasblower's knife, or the edge of a tungsten carbide lathe tool tip - you can substitute almost anything sharp and harder than silica. But since the little ceramic squares work very well, get given away with columns, and even if you buy them they cost very little, why would you want to substitute ?

Or is this one of those post-apocalyptic threads where all you have left is a Rambo knife and a yard of string

Peter

I agree with Peter. A number of years ago I purchased a rotary column cuting tool that now only gets used as it has a magnifing lens in the handle. I get better cuts with the wafer.

You have made good points! I bought a column on ebay that didn't come with the ceramic cutter and I don't have one lying around. Thank you for your input.

I would be interested to hear how the e-bay column turns out - is it from one of the mainstream manufacturers ?

Peter

It is, it is an Agilent DB-624 supposedly.