Interesting cleaning techniques.

In my youth, working on aircraft, I learned of the practice of cleaning jet engines with crushed walnut shells, a practice I understand that has been pretty much been overcome by technology.

And now in my, uh, shall I say more senior years, I learned tonight that running old MRI, CT Scan, and X-Ray films through a shredder does a pretty good job of cleaning the shredder cutters.

The shredder is a typical crosscut paper shredder that claims to handle seven sheets of paper at a time.  That is of course as likely as getting the sticker rating gas mileage on a car — four sheets is about the max load unless I want to hear some real motorized groaning during an elongated shredding process. 

But, it is handling half sheets of films cut lengthwise to allow the pieces to fit into the shredder.  After about six half-sheets the heat-sensitive load-trip pops and the shredded goes into its cooling period, but it is doing a good job of shredding those films and there isn’t a bit of old compressed paper left inside.

Warning:  Though more efficient than doing it all with a pair of scissors, running film through the shredder makes a LOT of noise!  Scissors were my idea.  Shredder was hers.  She very much regrets her suggestion.  Heh.