[Histonet] Bone saw

[Gayle Callis]

Jackie,

That Cabelas commercial butcher saw would probably do the job for you for 
really large bones but remember that the actual passing of a saw blade 
through a frozen bone will thaw the bone at the sawing site, simply due to 
the heat created by the friction of the blade passing through the hard 
bone.  Is there no way the bone can be sawn BEFORE freezing, unless you do 
not care about some bone loss.  We always cut our samples before doing any 
freezing.  And the smaller the bone you need for undecalcified bone 
sections means there will probably be more thawing and then refreezing on 
the bone surface.

The MarMed saw would probably do the job too, but the Buehler Isomet is low 
speed but requires a water cooling bath during the sawing process.  The 
Isomet is really best for small bones and not large bones as the cutoff 
blades are not very large diameter, meaning much shallower cuts overall.

I hae seen hobby band saws used for cutting bone samples even when embedded 
in PMMA and these saws sit on a countertop.

At 10:08 AM 4/10/2007, you wrote:
>I'm looking for a band saw or reasonable facsimile to cut large frozen
>blocks of tissue for subsequent frozen section microtomy - any ideas?
>
>Jackie O'
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Gayle Callis
MT,HT,HTL(ASCP)
Research Histopathology Supervisor
Veterinary Molecular Biology
Montana State University - Bozeman
PO Box 173610
Bozeman MT 59717-3610