Captain Spaz and his mighty ceramic tweezers

[GrayVaper]

I have heard that you can take the ceramic body from a spark plug and crack a car windshield with modest force. Supposedly it has to do hardness properties of the two materials. I've never tried it, but I do know that some emergency windshield breaking tools have a ceramic tip.
Now let's transition to our universe (or at least mine) and let me share with my fellow coil builders a story best titled "What the F$@K?!"
Tonite I had my iPad proped up on it's folding cover's base as I have done for over two years. I had set one of my attys in front of me to clean the coils and rewick it. I used my stub nosed ceramic tweezers to pull the dirty cotton and reached to place them back in thier place when the side of the tips lightly struck the corner of my iPad screen. I heard a faint, crisp snap and witnessed this:

I am bummed and flabbergasted!
But I'm not shelling out $150 to fix an already outdated device.

I just wanted to share this idiot moment and let everyone know that Murphy's law is alive and well.

 

[Everpresentnewb]

Damn... That sucks. But you know you can get a replacement glass on Amazon for a lot less than 150 and do it yourself right? IF you can build coils Im sure you can replace that glass. Little heat and it releases the adhesive and pulls out.

 

[Robert B]

I was using my ceramic tweezers to hold a coil while I fired it with a torch. Getting the coil red hot, setting it down, then dipping the tweezer tips into cold water to cool them so I could stick another coil on the tweezers without burning my fingers. Don't do this, the tips of the tweezers shattered as soon as they touched the water. Doh..

 

[GrayVaper]

Good to know, thanks!

 

[GrayVaper]

Damn... That sucks. But you know you can get a replacement glass on Amazon for a lot less than 150 and do it yourself right? IF you can build coils Im sure you can replace that glass. Little heat and it releases the adhesive and pulls out.

Yeah, I looked into it when the wife damaged hers. I just think it's a no rush item since the iPad never leaves my house.

 

[Haadkoe]

I'm good with my stainless tweezers. Soaked them in ISO, wiped the paint off, and good to go.

If I'm inattentive enough to fire the thing while touching it with the metal tweezers, I deserve whatever I get. Delicate ceramic and I probably wouldn't get along together too well for too long, and I'd rather keep the $20 in my pocket.

 

[scarecrowjenkins]

Sorry about your ipad, but thanks for the warning!

 

[Jaaxx]

I was using my ceramic tweezers to hold a coil while I fired it with a torch. Getting the coil red hot, setting it down, then dipping the tweezer tips into cold water to cool them so I could stick another coil on the tweezers without burning my fingers. Don't do this, the tips of the tweezers shattered as soon as they touched the water. Doh..

I did almost the same thing. I used to torch my coils with steel tweezers and then quench them to harden them a bit. Picked up the ceramics without thinking one day and crrraacckkk. They were the fine tip kind and I was able to dremel them down to a usable state.