[Histonet] More specific information from the rookie

[Jack England]

Hi again all,

So far you've all provided a huge help already, but here's a little more 
info that may help. The paraffin that we're using is TBS PolyFin, mp 55 deg 
C. The samples that we're infiltrating are vascular tissue; tubular samples 
approx. 1cm long with a wall thickness of approx. 0.5-1mm.

The books I've been studying from are:
--Bancroft, J and Gamble, M ed. (2002): Theory and Practice of Histological 
Techniques, 5th ed. Churchill , ISBN: 0-443-06435-0
--Prophet, E. et. al, ed. (1994): Laboratory Methods in Histotechnology. 
American Registry of Pathology, ISBN 1-881041-00-X

I'm kind of embarrassed to say it, but we don't have an oven (PI decided 
current equipment should work for now), so our 3 paraffin baths are in an 
incubator set at 55 C. I don't know whether having our paraffin baths at the 
melting point of the paraffin is a bad thing or a good thing, but my 
suspicion is that it is not good, so I'm lobbying for an oven.

The vacuum infiltrator is one big tub set into our embedding center, so I 
think we'd have a hard time changing out the paraffin multiple times. I was 
toying with the idea of putting 3-4 small jars inside it and using those, 
since the samples are so small.

Thanks again for all the help so far--you've been a lot friendlier to an 
obviously inexperienced (and undertrained) novice than I was expecting. 
Thank you so much!!

--Regards,
Jack England

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