Posted by The_Quiet_One on Thu 18 Sep 08, 12:03 AM to The_Quiet_One's blog.
Beds of nails are apparently easy to make - and the safety precautions are simple - but I want to recreate a particular dream that my partner had as a child so it's going to be needles or nothing.
I'm blogging this as a work in progress and to record thoughts - but I'd particularly welcome advice from any needleplayers reading this, or anyone who has used/made/lain on a bed of nails.
There was a thread on beds of nails here:- http://www.informedconsent.co.uk/boards/generalb...
And I've read this article on how to put one together:- http://www.keypoint.com.au/~skeptics/Bed_of_Nails
Needles have a smaller cross-sectional area and sharper edges than nails - so would break the skin much more easily.
The bed of nails above has about 800 nails and I'd want this bed to be around twice the size, so 1600 nails.
My best guess at the moment is to replace 1600 nails with around 10,000 10-gauge needles - but that will need to be tested on a small scale with the specific needles.
Safety-wise my thoughts are:-
The extra surface area from flattening the ends of the other 5,000 needles would help somewhat.TYPES OF NEEDLES:-
1. Piercing needles
That isn't ideal in a bed that will be re-used.
But having injected myself over 30,000 times using less than 1,000 different needles I don't believe there's any danger in the same person re-using hollow needles.
2. Sewing needles
This concern seems slightly suspect too - but I haven't ever stuck 30,000 sewing needles into myself so I won't venture to disagree!
3. Acupuncture and tattooing needles
The small gauge on these needles would entail using gigantic numbers of them, possibly creating an effect like astroturf...
4. Hypodermic needles
5. Something else
Edited Sun 26 Jul 09, 5:25 PM by The_Quiet_One
| 18 Sep 08, 5:37 PM Jezzebelle UK, 10 yrs  |
'But having injected myself over 30,000 times using less than 1,000 different needles I don't believe there's any danger in the same person re-using hollow needles'. Surely injecting yourself is different as the fluid flushes the needle out, where as a dry needle will collect flesh. Also not sure that the needles would support a body in the same way as nails do, due to the nails being fairly blun and thick. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jezzebelle/ | ||
| 19 Sep 08, 11:31 PM The_Quiet_One 4 yrs |
Thanks for the response Jezzebelle - these are my thoughts on the two issues raised:-
- I'm unsure whether there's a 'soil sample' effect inside a hypodermic (or piercing...) needle, but either way the rest of the needle's surface is certainly going to have traces of blood on it. -I've never experienced any negative effect from that when injecting with the same needle for several weeks. - which is counter-intuitive. Anyone would think the blood would quickly become infested with bacteria and make me ill, but it has always been fine in practice. My mother and brother are diabetic too and they find it's the same. - Basically I feel we'll be okay with antiseptic and if any 'gunk' seems to accumulate on the ends of the needles we can take a view on it. - the ideal for this would be solid steel needles but these are apparently hard to come by and don't show up easily on Google.
Physics sez they would - but it's a question of how many of them are needed to distribute the same load... and whether that many needles could feasibly be fixed into a bed! the difference in cross-sectional area alone will mean 4 times as many needles as nails are needed but the sharpness of the points is an unknown quantity and would have to be tested, e.g. 100 needles + orange...
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| 23 Sep 08, 11:52 PM The_Quiet_One 4 yrs |
UPDATE:- have bought these:- | ||
| 16 Oct 08, 10:39 PM The_Quiet_One 4 yrs |
So far it looks like a go-er. I'm in the flat in Ipswich so the materials are non-photogenic but:- 100 piercing needles in a rough 100mmx100mm grid can support:- 250g microwavable rice Two full mugs of water A plate 380ml bottled water 380ml bottled water (at this last, the sachet of rice at the bottom started to be pierced. I'll add that up when I'm back home but we're in the ballpark here. I can press down on this quite firmly with my hand. The hollow needle tips are pleasingly reminiscent of the bamboo pit traps used by the Vietcong. The low-quality chinese made needles are ideal as the points aren't so sharp as I imagined. Hygiene should be ok too - these are much larger than hypodermic needles and shouldn't be collecting bits of skin beyond what an antiseptic spray and a cloth could cope with. Therefore, I shall bounce the idea off my partner, invest in a rubber doormat type thing and try this on a slightly bigger scale with more needles.
Thanks to inflation | ||
| 2 Nov 08, 1:45 AM The_Quiet_One 4 yrs |
my partner is pleased with the idea 100 piercing needles in a rough 100mmx100mm grid can support:- 250g +380g +380g +600g +600g +500g = 2.7kg = 26N A typical person weighs about 550N .: 2100 needles could support them or 21 x 100mm squares This seems okay. A rubber doormat has proved difficult to work with. The needles need to stand upright and a guide is needed to punch them through the rubber. However, the number of needles next to each other causes the mat to distort. My next attempt will be a wooden board with drilled holes - this may take a while...
Thanks to inflation | ||
| 10 Apr 09, 12:35 PM The_Quiet_One 4 yrs |
Still going... This needs perpendicular holes of equal length - and the best thing for that seems to be a router. 1020W from B&Q is £30 At the moment I'm trying to match up the piercing needle gauges with the imperial gauges they use for router bits. http://www.csgnetwork.com/drillsizeconvert.html http://wiki.bmezine.com/index.php/Gauge At the moment I have a 10g needle in a 1/8" hole. This works acceptably - the needle fits in the hole and the glue fills the 0.5mm gap. I want to get a tighter fit and need to order:-
I'm in the process of buying a house now, so if either of those combinations works I'll soon have space to start drilling.
May have to save up for the needles though Thanks to inflation Edited 10 Apr 09, 12:41 PM by The_Quiet_One |
