Child of a Metal God

The room we moved our robotics group into was the university's old metrology lab -- lovely air-conditioning and humidity control natch. The cupboards were another matter, including a venerable open container of mercury that, we discovered was used of old for mirroring flats for optical testing of surfaces with a sodium lamp and a knife-edge. This was a bit flatter than most surface plates need to be but it was a metrology lab, not a workshop.