Glass stretching machine - GIFs

[mklotz]

I'm not certain what they're making here but the process is very familiar to me.

When I built my perfusion machine in high school, I needed a cannula with a very tiny diameter to attach the rabbit kidney being perfused to the blood supply. I made them myself by drawing out glass tubing much as is being done (at admittedly larger scale) in the GIFs. Once the cannula is formed, the end was heated and a small bulb was blown to act as a stop so that the cannula won't pull out of the artery once it is sutured in place.

The devices they're making look more like some sort of laboratory sampling glassware. A thin tube leading to a larger diameter reservoir which, in turn, has a thin tube extending from the top. Suction applied to the top tube will cause fluid to draw up the other tube into the reservoir. Once a sufficient sample is in the reservoir, sealing the vacuum tube will hold the sample until it can be transferred to wherever; then releasing the seal dumps the sample.

I'm probably completely wrong but it's fun to speculate on these things; I view it as treadmill exercise for the analytic mind.