[Solved] Lab trivia: the calander

It's monday, a new week is starting and the next week-end is only a mirage. The only way to survive is to take part to the most awaited trivia of the web (ok, I'm exaggerating a little bit). Have a look at the magnified detail in the picture here below and try to guess the name of  the instrument it belongs to. I've to admit that it is quite peculiar and I've just discovered it.

Write your guess as a comment to this blog post. To make the game funnier and to allow everybody to participate, all messages will be moderated and in case your guess is right it will be masked not to spoil others. Each good attempt will be rewarded with a suggestion!

The solution after the jump...

Solution: the calander

Not to be confused with calender, the calander (calandra in italiano) is a mechanical tool made of two or more cylinders that is used to press materials in form of sheets. It can be used for paper or for metals, gold and aluminum in particular. The winner of this week is ilmarion, who precisely guessed the device name, but others got quite close guessing the use of those rolls.

In the picture on the right, you see the calander in all its beauty. The one in our workshop is rather small and bigger and stronger ones are available elsewhere. To use it, you need to put the material you need to press close to the cylinder gap, then you start turning the big handle and the compression will do the rest. Of course you can't start from something too thick compared to the gap, and that's the reason why there are adjusting gears on the top to tune the distance between the cylinders.

In our laboratory we use it to make extremely thin foils of metals, just few millions of a meter thick sheets of copper or aluminum to be used in our accelerator experiments.

One curiosity: the lines you can see on the rolls are used to draw wires instead of sheets.

PS. Remember in every successful laboratory there is a well equipped mechanical workshop and an excellent mechanical engineer.