Home made Stethoscope

We were very lucky to have been handed down a stethoscope a number of years ago. But as many people do, when someone's asks if you have something and you say 'yes, would you like to borrow it?' the answer nine times out of ten is 'yes please' and so off it goes, but then when you need it a few months later or a few years later you forget altogether who you gave it to! a bit like ' O, yes, of course you can borrow such and such a book, as long as you can get it back!' but the latter always seems to be the problem! or you forget who you gave it to, just as we did with our aged but very precious Stethoscope.

So we decided to attempt to make one, and it works a treat.  So, in the event you need one, and don't have a medical store beside you or indeed anyone who you could borrow one from this is what you will need. 

1 A 4 ft length of plastic hollow pipe (preferably soft rubber)

2 A 1'6" ft long piece of garden wire

3 Some strong tape or insulating tape

4 A balloon

5 A plastic top off a bottle of juice or water bottle

Tools needed

1 A pair of scissors

2 Something to make a whole with

3 An extra pair of hands at the end (for placing the balloon on)

4 Glue

METHOD

1  Bend the 1'6" of wire in to a 'U' shape

2  Cut just over 1'9" of rubber piping

3  Central the wire to the centre of the 1'9" rubber piping

4  Tape both the wire and piping together off  centre by about 2" 

5  Tape the end of the wire ( so that the sharp end is neither visible 

    or potentially sore) to about 1 or 2 inches before the end of 

    the rubber piping

6  Repeat this at the other end  ( so that the wire never ends up any 

   where near the end of the rubber piping)

7  Make a slit in the centre of the U piping that is now attached to 

    the wire

8  (Ask an adult to help with this section) Take the plastic bottle 

    top and make a hole slightly smaller than the pipe width in the         lid.

9   Stick the rubber piping through the lids' hole and tape gently 

     together but making sure that you leave the open ended section        of the bottle to the outside and that the piping just goes through        the lid and no more.

1 Take the U section of rubber and the long end of the second   

   piece of piping, stick the end without the top in to the slit /small 

   hole in the centre of the the U Piping.

2 Glue where the two end pieces of rubber join the slit as well as 

   the cap and tape over the glue.

3 Wait to dry

4 Take the balloon, cut off the narrower end and with the rest of   

   the balloon stretch it over the bottle cap.

And there you have a Stethoscope. 

Check it on your own heart first. 

Well done you have succeeded. 

If you want to make a bigger one for larger animals then you could uses the neck of a bottle and longer piping a the end. 

Good luck.