Hello to all -- I have a query related to this one. One of my students in
Australia is preparing a horse skeleton to become a classroom mount. All
went well through the tank-maceration process. They then poured off the
water and were doing some scrubbing & paring off bits of wax. They had
quit for the day, and placed the cleaned bones back into a tub containing
clean water. Coming back two days later, they found that all the bones
placed in that tub had turned stark black!
I assume this is reduced iron or perhaps zinc -- the tub is plastic but
does have metal "buttons" where the handles attach. Can anyone suggest a
cure for this situation? The black color does not scrub off. If we leave
it on there, our final mount is going to look like a chessboard, for half
of the bones are white and half are now black! Thanks -- Dr. Deb
> Dear Alex,
>
> We are currently working on seal and sea lion skeletons, which, as you can
> imagine, are quite greasy. My graduate student discovered that soaking in
> acetone worked quite well (without the side effects of other treatments).
> We
> have a gallon jar with a lid that we place the bones in and let them soak
> for a few weeks to a month, checking periodically. They have turned out
> white and pretty :-)
>
> Good luck!
>
> Chris
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 6:25 AM, Alexandru Gudea <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear colleagues,
>> Due the nature of my work, I came in contact with some prospective
>> "clients" that would like me to prepare some bone specimens.
>> My problem is that instead of being interested in morphologically corect
>> pieces, their desire is to have perfect white and defattened pieces
>> (aspect
>> that I never considered the most important in the preparates that I
>> provide
>> my students)
>> So I started preparing some distal pig limbs, but, despite of my repeted
>> boiling/detergent/washing soda baths and even benzenic fat extraction,
>> drilling etc things do not look as expected (fat spots after 2-3 days of
>> drying). the situation is not as bad with some dog skulls, but still
>> some
>> spots are visible after complete drying.
>> Can anyone suggest another simple but effective method?
>> Thanks in advance,
>> Alex
>>
>> dr. Gudea Alexandru
>> Facultatea de Medicina Veterinara Cluj Napoca
>> str. Manastur nr 3
>> Dep. Anatomie Comparata
>> 400372 Cluj Napoca
>> Romania
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Christyann Darwent, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor of Archaeology
> Department of Anthropology
> Graduate Groups in Ecology & Forensic Science
> University of California, Davis 95616-8522
> ph. 530-752-1590/ 2-0745
> http://anthropology.ucdavis.edu/people/christyann-m.-darwent-1/christyann-m.-darwent
>
> "There may be more than one way to skin a cat, but you only get one try
> per
> cat"
>
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