I work in advertising and we get through a fair amount of scalpel blades – for trimming artwork etc.

Working in a bike shop we used the old favourite of hairspray to stick grips on bars.

I know soldiers carry tampons to plug bullet wounds.

As a teacher, my girlfriend 'magpies' an embarassingly large amount of wallpaper to make borders for wall charts etc.

What products do you use in your industry that the outside world might be interested to hear about?

google – you can do anything in IT with access to it!

biscuits.

If you exclude exotic woods for bodies and stuff, graphite powder, restringing a guitar it goes on the saddles and in the string slots on the nut, that's about as odd as my materials get really.Oh and lemon oil for polishing some fretboards.

Coffee

Twaddell-sticks. One of those things you think must be invented for the new apprentice to fetch from stores, but actually a very useful process measurement tool.

a single, flexible port that can be fitted through a small incision in the umbilicus

use rizla paper/ varnish as a very low grade composite!

buffaloshit
.
like bullshit, but more of it
piles of it

Rolls and rolls of toilet paper,
Well, not so much now, but back in the 80s and 90s they were very necessary for keeping Staedtler technical pens going for drawing work.
and Pounce (like talc).

Tommorow, I shall be using one of these to determine the natural frequencies of a pier, possibly combined with some climbing rope and a bag of B+Q's finest sharp sand.

My Dad kept a pack of Rizla blues in his tool box – sheets of which he used as very very thin feeler gauges.

Phosgene, was an ingredient we used to use where I served my time.

titusrider, shhhhh, don't let the secret out. IT jobs are hard enough to come by these days as it is.

my job is impossible without a book called the International Classification of Diseases and Realted Health Problems. Basically 1200 page list of diseases, injuries and other things that don't bare thinking about with a 4 digit code for each.

Gravity.

Macs.

amyl nitrate

Some of these:

http://www.xaar.com/xaar1001.aspx

Hopefully this pic'll work (not sure as it's a gif

Teat ended, non spermicidally-lubricated condoms.

Chop the teat bit off, and its just the right size to cover a radio-mic capsule to stop it getting full of makeup.

Another essential bit of kit – a King Dick Podger

Vasaline

stumpy01,
That's funny. Just spend this morning taking two of those apart!

People.

I read that the CNC industry is keeping floppy disk sales alive

Diameter Breast Height Tape Measures – for measuring standing wood (when I was a trainee)

now it's more likely to be Monte Carlo simulations 🙁

recently to stick glass coverslips to slides with cancer cells on them i have been using a 1:1:1 mixture of beeswax, parafin, vasaline and sealed with clear nail varnish

i had to go to the local chemist to buy the vasaline and nail polish

I read that the CNC industry is keeping floppy disk sales alive

most modern CNC's are networked to a central computer these days so you just choose a program on the pc and whizz it to the cnc or edit it on the cnc and whizz it back to the computer. I'll get my coat…

In my bike shop days we used a lot of nail varnish as touch up paint.

A 16" Monadnock Extendable Baton, 3 different types of handcuffs, body belts, mobile phone detectors.

Following on from above essel.. pens, repetitive forms, patience…

Double sided tape, for taking the skin off fruit fly embryos.

bikemonkey – Member

I know soldiers carry tampons to plug bullet wounds.

Really? I've never come across that one. You know some odd soldiers.

Stw is better for IT queries than Google

It is knowing that which makes me a senior consultant

big blue Ikea carrier bags, I buy them by the hundred, have used them to move a river bed and to transport an exploded airliner.

chest drains, super absorbent gel, thermally tolerant bacteria, cable ties, tubigrip, massive bolt cutters and a demolition saw. All on the same job

have used them to move a river bed

Hope the Environment Agency was informed on that one 😉

Ash to seal dam boards.

I have a bottle of Acid and a rock hammer, these keep me content 🙂

Used to use shaped charges – would be equally useful in my current job in local govt!

I have a bottle of Acid and a rock hammer, these keep me content

Do they go with your beard, hiking boots and compass clino? 😉

Extreemely intense, focused, ionizing, white beam radiation from a big synchrotron.