[Histonet] Cutting paraffin sections in a warm room

gayle callis gayle.callis <@t> bresnan.net
Thu Nov 5 12:42:22 CST 2009


Adam, 

Cool trimmed bone blocks on a block of ice with extra water on top of ice.
This helps soften the bone and keepS the block cold but don't over soak,
that can lead to shredded sections.   A cube of ice wrapped in gauze, held
to face of block and also held to knife holder may help or simply keep a wad
of gauze on the ice block, and hold to block face just before continuing to
section a block. We even put the forceps used to grasp ribbon cold in an ice
bath, prevents sticking paraffin and keep the microtome blade holder (metal
plate) clean - paraffin likes to stick to everything, even itself.    

We also infiltrate and embed bone in a harder paraffin (Tissue Prep 2) to
match the harder matrix of decalcified bone to paraffin.   

There have been times when our lab was stifling, and cooling the trimmed
block on ice block solved the problem.  

Gayle M. Callis
HTL/HT/MT(ASCP) 



-----Original Message-----
From: histonet-bounces <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu
[mailto:histonet-bounces <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu] On Behalf Of Adam .
Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 11:11 AM
To: histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu
Subject: [Histonet] Cutting paraffin sections in a warm room

Hi all,

I've just recently started cutting paraffin sections (of bones). A few weeks
ago, the facilities people decided that it was fall and now the lab is
significantly warmer than it used to be, and my paraffin is falling apart
and sticking to everything. Apparently, we can't control the temperature
through a thermostat at all, and the microtome is inside the lab. I was
wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to section in a warm room.

Thanks,
Adam

 

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