Silly SH..

[dallanta]

  I have been around more than a few years.  I was wondering.  What is the silliest most anal thing you have had to calibrate or certify?  For example, toilet seat width or your boses ego, one and the same, lol  I am sure you all got some doozies
  A few years back, I was paid to measure and iron bar.  It was rusty and corroded and non-moveable.  The thing was nasty, but they wanted me to measure its' length.  After celaning the ends off, it turned out to be 82.5" Long.  that is all they wanted to know.
  Oh yeah, it did not get a sticker, it just got measured.

[USMCPMEL]

I am going to say 4 little plastic cubes. They use them to hold up some instrument while they put it together. Have to be exactly 1 inch because that is what the procedure says. and yes they get stickers.

[scottbp]

Well, we occasionally get in el-cheapo meters (we're talking $5-$10 2-1/2 digit DMMs, and stopwatches that look like toys), but we go ahead and calibrate them anyway, and charge 'em an hour's labor.

But the silliest thing wasn't what we calibrated, but what I found in it and where it came from. After finding a laminar flowmeter out of tolerance, I proceeded to clean out the passages and flushed out bits of rubber from inside the unit. Come to find out the customer that sent it to us was a condom manufacturer...

[Mike]

We actually had a block of wood once...scheduled it in initial cal and assigned it to an Airman to calibrate for length, width and height...

He gave it a good college try...but couldn't get repeatable readings...

[flew-da-coup]

okay, how about a bucket. Yes a bucket.

[Hawaii596]

This is a LITTLE different, but...

In a previous job many years ago (working for a third party company I have no respect for), I wrote a documented calibration procedure I believe for an HP 4145A Semiconductor Analyzer.  I added a totally ludicrous paragraph which was utter nonsense.  Sandwiched between steps which measured low currents (or something like that), I described some bogus connections and instructed the technician to measure dBJ (decibels relative to the standard Johnson).  The Johnson is a unit of thermal noise.

It was funny to me at the time as it was approved and made it into the document control system that way; and may still be today.

[KnobTwistinFool]

While working in the medical device manufacturing (in-house) environment, please keep in mind that "we" have our fair share of over-zealous, anal-retentive, under-informed, quality engineers and quality auditors to deal with. . .  We were "discussing" the recent revision to a sweeping internal document which "required any graduated measurement device, utilized to make any measurement decisions, to be calibrated with traceability,to NIST".  I wanted to have some fun with this.  I submitted that all of the clocks in our manufacturing facility needed to be calibrated or identified as "For Reference Only".  The Senior QE's & QA's ate it up - then took it to corporate as a continuous improvement suggestion. . .  As usual, the Senior QE's adopted it as their own project and committed a team of process engineers to design a proposal for conformance.  Two months into the fiasco, they came back to the Metrology Lab and asked for our input.  We simply told them that time is relative - and calibrating wall clocks was a waste of time - unless we could synchronize all of the devices together and place them on a specified interval for re-certification.  The project was spinning its wheels for an additional two months before they finally gave up.  I believe that it finally hit a wall when the Site Director (VP) realized he would either have to remove his Grandfather clock from his office or place a Ref Only sticker in a conspicuous area on its face. . .  :-o My manager and I (had a good laugh) then suggested that all of the Personal Computer clocks could also be synchronized but that that process must be validated.  The IT department never responded to the suggestion.  :evil: The aforementioned internal document - has been under revision ever since - and that was 2004!  :-D Needless to say, I went through about 200+ Ref Only labels and need to replace at least one - every month. 

[KnobTwistinFool]

okay, how about a bucket.  Yes a bucket. 

LOL - that's sweet.
Was there a hole in the bucket? Did you revise your procedure to include the specific model?

[KnobTwistinFool]

Has anyone else measured the exact weight of the Boy Scout pine derby cars? We usually have an analytical balance set-up in the springtime just for them.  So far, only one Dad actually wanted a calibration label included in the measurement.

[flew-da-coup]

okay, how about a bucket.  Yes a bucket. 

LOL - that's sweet.
Was there a hole in the bucket? Did you revise your procedure to include the specific model?

I ended up using a generic Mass procedure. I put a liter of distilled water in it and weighed it. It was accepted by the customer. LOL.

[skolito]

Some people How about a 100 PSI gage to ±50PSI

[USMCPMEL]

I had to measure lunch boxes one time.

[mrrob007]

Has anyone else measured the exact weight of the Boy Scout pine derby cars? We usually have an analytical balance set-up in the springtime just for them.  So far, only one Dad actually wanted a calibration label included in the measurement.

I had to do that..... I actually did it in a hobby shop. The owner paid me $20/hr to just be in the shop for a few days just so that they could prove the measurements were valid. They are pretty anal about the derby races around here...

[flew-da-coup]

Some people How about a 100 PSI gage to ±50PSI

LOL, are you for real!!!!

[Mike]

Some people How about a 100 PSI gage to ±50PSI

Well hey, I QA'd an ohmeter that was cal'd to "+/- 2% of FS"

...full scale was infinity!!