Hi everyone, I'm Christina Prahl and in this video I'm going to show you how to safely load and remove a scalpel blade, which is an important tool used for sharp dissection in lab. So when you're ready to load your scalpel, you'll need your 22 scalpel blade and a number four scalpel handle. You'll go ahead and open this aluminum packaging that the blade comes in. And you're going to open it about halfway because we want to leave the blade within its protective covering so that we don't cut ourselves on the sharp edge of the blade.
So you'll take the end of your handle and begin to insert it within this oval opening of the blade. blade and you'll notice we have an oblique angle here that needs to be lined up with the same oblique angle of the handle. If you don't line the angles up the blade cannot be inserted correctly. So we're making sure that those match. We're going to go ahead and insert the tip of the handle into this oval opening area about halfway and as you can see here I'm slightly angling the handle upward because this little ridge within the end of the handle needs to straddle the inner edges of this oval opening on the blade.
And then I'm going to use the tabletop to press the handle downward until I hear the click that the blade is in place. And I'm ready to dissect. If the blade ever comes loose from the handle or falls out of the packaging for some reason, It's best to never handle the blade with your hand. Use a pair of forceps to handle them and get a good grip so that you're not going to accidentally cut yourself and to prevent injury.
After dissection, when you're ready to remove the blade from your handle, we'll use one of these blade removers. and you can follow the instructions shown here but the blade should always be pointing right. You're going to simply and firmly insert the handle and blade all the way in until you hear a click and pull straight back out.