[Histonet] sectioning problems

[Tyler W.]

I recently have been having problems pulling ribbons from my microtome and was 
wondering if anyone has advice.

1.) I was having problems pulling ribbons from newly embeded blocks, but ones that had 
been embeded previously were very easy to pull ribbons from.  The new ones would simply 
curl on the blade and wouldn't even grab on to the adjascent sections.

2.) I changed the paraffin in the embedding station because I noticed all the temeratures 
were set to 64 C when the melting point for the Surgipath paraffin formula 'R' was 56-67C.  
Could this have been a problem?

3.) I switched to an old lot of Fisher embeding medium and now all the section come off, but 
on occasion when the chuck on the mictomome comes back up it seems to (via static 
electricity?) pull the ribbon from the microtome blade and interupt the ribbon.

4.) Also, visually the Fisher paraffin blocks look almost transparent whereas the Surgipath 
blocks seem opaque and white.

I'm relatively new to the histology game and I realize that there is both art and science 
involved, but this is clearly unacceptable behavior from the paraffin, something is surely 
wrong.  I'm sure you are all experienced and maybe you have advice?  If you do I would 
apreciate it so much.  The first and best advice get their choice of FTD flowers and/ or 
homemade brownies.

Thank you--Tyler Wellington