Airports

villafan · 27-02-2005 8:19pm #1

This is a genuine question, do standard penis rings set off airport metal detectors?

Jetpilot · 27-02-2005 8:35pm

Nope, well at least mine never has

Blub2k4 · 28-02-2005 9:17am

Well I was on a business trip to Frankfurt soon after 9/11 and went through the normal gate and there was no problem, BUT they ran the hand scanner over me after this and that did go off on my nipple piercing. The guy asked what it was and I told him and had to show him that it was a nipple piercing, I was happy at the time that I didn't have the PA yet.

I am MAN · 28-02-2005 10:16am

Surgical steel will not set off the alarm i've been through the detectors of various airports with various cock rings!

sickle · 28-02-2005 12:15pm

i've never set them off either..the agic wand never detected any either. people always just assume you set them off,silly bastids..

memphis · 28-02-2005 3:36pm

Went through the security gate with my eyebrow stud in and it never set off alarm so I can only assume a willy ring won't either.

Be embarrassing if ya had to show it though. LOL

Blub2k4 · 28-02-2005 4:06pm

sickle wrote:

i've never set them off either..the agic wand never detected any either. people always just assume you set them off,silly bastids..

The wand did go off on mine, make of that what you will.

sickle · 28-02-2005 4:11pm

Blub2k4 wrote:

The wand did go off on mine, make of that what you will.

you are just special
or maybe im the special one,hummmm

Blub2k4 · 28-02-2005 4:19pm

sickle wrote:

you are just special
or maybe im the special one,hummmm

What are you on about, he asked for an answer, I gave him my experience?

cajun_tiger · 28-02-2005 6:24pm

everytime i go over to egland stansted the alarms go off and i get searched i say what i have pierced and they put the scanner thing and it beeps and they let me go.. it happened in work too(argos)

MarcusGarvey · 28-02-2005 6:30pm

Mine don't go off at all. Never have. I remember an idiot security guard told me once when I was going through to put my hand over my metal belt to stop the alarm going off and it worked. Nice tip there. Can you hold my carpet cutter for a sec while I get my bag ? Cheers. :rolleyes:

villafan · 28-02-2005 10:51pm

So usually it doesnt?If it does.... :eek:

Blub2k4 · 01-03-2005 7:56am

villafan wrote:

So usually it doesnt?If it does.... :eek:

That's about it, they are professionals and with the amount of people pierced these days I think they must be getting used to it. In any case you showed your knob to a stranger to get it pierced, if you had to take it out for a guard at the airport it would not be that much different would it really?

cajun_tiger · 01-03-2005 10:19am

i was asked to show my nipple and hood the first time it went off.. i had no problems and neither did the girl. it wasnt "oo let me see your gibblets" it was "right thats fine."
over and done with

Blub2k4 · 01-03-2005 10:42am

cajun_tiger wrote:

oo let me see your gibblets

right that's fine

sutty · 03-03-2005 11:02am

If I recall from my days of working in IBM, who have Metal Detecters on all the doors to the factory. The large Door like detectors. Will only go off over a certan level of metal. How ever I asume that in a airport they would be set to be more sensitive. The Wand Would be more focused than the Larger detecter. Think of it like a mini metal detecter that you sometimes see people with at the beach. So that more than likely would pick up something. But to be honest, They have privet areas for searches like this and after all, you did let some lad or lass touch it to pierce it... so what would be the problem with showing it to someone who is also doing the job. Also they have more than likely seen alot stranger stuff than that.

eth0_ · 07-03-2005 5:10pm

I don't think small amount of surgical steel will set it off.
All my piercings are niobium, and for some reason never set off the detectors in Dublin airport, but flying out of Belfast or back from London and Edinburgh most recently, they DO set them off! Which is odd and a bit worrying

LFCFan · 08-04-2005 1:57pm

if surgical steel won't set them off (I have a plate and pins in my leg and it doesn't set it off either) then what's to stop terrorists making guns or knives out of surgical steel? Maybe a certain density of it will set it off?

larryone · 08-04-2005 10:51pm

I think it'd be a great excuse to get yer lad out at an airport =0)

Reku · 11-04-2005 8:51am

MarcusGarvey wrote:

Mine don't go off at all. Never have. I remember an idiot security guard told me once when I was going through to put my hand over my metal belt to stop the alarm going off and it worked. Nice tip there. Can you hold my carpet cutter for a sec while I get my bag ? Cheers. :rolleyes:

It's probably a case of the majority of these systems having a low penetration through the skin and so being set to not go off because of sugical implants. For the standard piercings it's more likely down to size than the actual metal they're made out of, as you can make a weapon out of any alloy you choose it just might be less sharp (less of a concern with stabbing type implements)/more brittle.

Just looked on howstuff works and the 3 main types of metal detectors are:
Very Low Frequency/Induction Balence - able to detect any metal and can in fact discriminate, telling you what metal the object probably is!. These can be set to not detect certain metals if they are of no interest.

Pulse Induction - can't discriminate between different metals very well. Has a higher penetration depth.

Beat Frequency Oscillator - cheap but inaccurate.

They all work by inducing currents in the metals and so magnetic fields, then detecting these fields and so will detect any highly conductive material, i.e. any metal. The most probable system for most airports is the VLF one, the ones which do go off for surgical steel are probably not calibrated to ignore it and the same applies for those that go off for small pieces of metal, such as eyebrow piercings, since the field strength should be dependent on both the conductivity of the metal and the size of the metal object.
Pressing your hand against the metal would help ground it through you and so weaken the current induced and the magnetic field, this would be another reason for small piercings not to show up and possibly why the method in the above quote worked.

In case you feel curious:
http://home.howstuffworks.com/metal-detector.htm

dondonjordan · 10-05-2005 3:55pm

very simple test

run a magnet over it

if it pulls you know it is a type of metal that can set the scanner off
in that case it might not be enough metal to set the unit off as they look for a certain size

making a gun or a nife oult of a gramm of metal is kind of hard

if it doesn't pull it is surgical steel which is developed so it has no magnetic properties and won't disrupt natural magnetic signals in the body

Airports

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