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Showing results for tags 'fossil prep'.
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Where to find some unprep’d trilobites? Starter prep setup widsom?
NoahW24 posted a topic in Fossil Preparation
Hi All! I wanted to see if anyone had advice on where a person might be able to track down some unprepared trilobites on the internet for prep practice? I’m trying to put together a little in-home setup for the winter, but work has been pretty busy and my field time may be limited for finding bugs to liberate from their shaley sleeping bags. Any advice on a starter prep setup would also be greatly appreciated! I’m still working on scraping (ha ha) together a budget for an air-scribe setup… are there any alternative options for slightly rougher but acceptable fossil prep in the meantime, after which I can leave the fine details to an airscribe? Thanks! Noah -
Hi everyone, last month I went on a trip to American Fossil Quarry. My sister and I had a great time, and we were lucky enough to find this juvenile partial Heliobatis radians. I'm really happy with this find, but since I've never found a stingray before, I have no clue how to prep it. Can the pos/neg plates be glued together and then prepared? Or is this a bad idea? There's also a crack running horizontally through the plates, but I know how to glue that back together. Anyway, I'm mainly wondering how to prepare it due to the delicate spines, and I really don't want to mess this specimen up. I've prepared other green river fish, but I've never worked on a ray, so I'd like to be careful. If you guys have any advice, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you and have a good day!
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Hello, two days ago I made my first fossil preparation and I figured I should share it here. I know I probably made a ton of mistakes but I am happy with the result. It took me around about 2 hours and I would love to hear from you everything I have done wrong. here are before and after pictures, I did not write on the pictures what is before and what is after but I think you can figure it out, I know it's my first try but how bad can it be.
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Hi all, I was wondering if anyone could give me advice on 1. air scribes you’ve found are good for fossil prep, and 2. All the parts needed for Scribes. I’m not quite sure all the parts needed for a scribe, I know you need the scribe itself and an air compressor, but I don’t know beyond that. P.s; the fossils I’ll be working on will be Green River fish, for the most part.
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So I’m on the verge of moving to a new house where I’ll be fortunate enough to have my own space for a fossil prep lab (and display room, but that’s for another discussion). This space is a completely hollowed out husk, doesn’t even have lighting installed at the moment. To those of you with fossil prep labs of your own, knowing what you know now, if you were making a lab from the ground up, what things would you suggest? Not just big stuff, but little things. What kind of overhead lighting? Floor padding you found useful? At the moment I have an air compressor and a wall mounted dust collector, my goal is to at least get an air abrasion cabinet going. Am I better off putting something together from a bunch of different pieces of equipment or just spending the money on an all in one cabinet? I’m down to DIY stuff that’s not crazy technical when it makes sense, but also understand some things are better to spend a little more on. I’ve been primarily dealing with softer shale material, but occasionally deal with limestone as well. It’s a large question I know, but any help or piece of individual wisdom from those who do these things at home would be greatly appreciated.
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Looking for bulk removal air scribe recommendations in the Junior Jack range
mamlambo posted a topic in Fossil Preparation
Hi All I'm looking to get a rough work air scribe and have 3 options so far (let me know if you have any other to look at please!): PaleoTools Junior Jack ZOIC Paleotech T Rex Ken Mannion SQ This is to work on some large New Zealand concretions. Has anyone got any experience using any of these or ideally, have used multiple of them? Thanks so much! @RJB I think you have a Junior Jack, any experience with any of the others? -
Hi! I have a couple of bones that I would love some help with. The first appears to be a metacarpal perhaps (?), about 2.5" long - of unknown origin. I received it in two pieces, with a bit of the surrounding matrix still intact. The matrix is rust-colored & grainy, almost similar to what you might find on a Spino tooth; although the fossil itself isn't colored like any spino specimen I've encountered, plus its a pretty small bone. Any thoughts on what it might be? Secondly, is a vertibra, perhaps caudal (?). Very small, roughly an inch squared. My assumption is that it is mammalian in origin. It's color is reminiscent of various bear, lion & canine examples I've worked with, but I would differ to the more knowledgable minds here. Any insight would be appreciated. Thank you in advance!
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Hi! I was recently given a partial oreodont skull to prep & restore. The reconstruction went well, there was a very little excess rock to clean away & the pieces that I do have went together smoothly. BUT after it was assembled, certain areas of the skull began turning green. The skull fragments had been stored in a temperature & humidity controlled environment for a number of years before i began working on it. I'm wondering if a change in environments or being handled for the first time in a long time might have something to do with it? Has anyone experienced anything like this before? Much appreciated!!
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Hello all! I found this pretty cool bryozoan back in July and I decided to give it a prep. Its really easy matrix to work with so its good practice for someone like me who’s only done a handful of preps. Like my past preparations, this will all be done manually using mainly safety pins. Fenestella sp. ? Middle Devonian Hamilton Group Moscow Formation Windom Shale DSR, Lebanon, NY Enjoy!
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Does anyone know where there is some good fossil prepping jobs are?
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hey does anyone have any good tips for prepping a fish nodule?
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Just got my first serious air abrasive unit, what should I know?
Lmshoemaker posted a topic in Fossil Preparation
Greetings! I've been gone from the forum for a while because personal circumstance prevented me from prepping and showing off my finds, but due to a friend retiring and selling off his old setup to me I am now soon to be prepping again! My problem is with this Comco unit I got, I know water in the air line will put these temporarily out of commission in a heartbeat, so what all do I need to do to keep water from clumping my abrasive? I know some very basics, that I need an air drier and to keep the media dry, but what brands of air dryer work best for our preparators on the forum? How do store your media? Is there anything outside of these variables I'm missing? I'm going out tomorrow to look at supplies, so any recommendations would be appreciated.
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The Paliotool ME-9100 arrived today and had the 1 1/2 engraver scribe on it. A quick change of connectors, a hose connected to my clean air source in the shop's paint booth and down to the pailoipaver part of the garden to get a couple of practice victims, I mean specimens. I won't talk about the first two except that they were pretty heavily fractured before I started in on them. Just know that they gave their best in the name of science and may they rest in peace. I picked a more robust one and stared in to clean up the center with better results although I don't think there should be a hole in the center. From this initial try found I will need better light and a support for the tool as it get to be tiresome after a session especially since I also worked today. Also magnification as I learn what detail to watch for. This one was happily returned to the paloipaver collection in the garden to live another day!
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Hey guys! So about four years ago, someone sold me a really cheap batch of unprepped fossils they dug up in the US; which included a large piece of rib bone (or so the seller thought). I started prepping the 'rib', and thought it looked a little strange. It had a tendon running along the bottom; which seemed weird as it was supposed to be a rib. However, I was still pretty new to fossil prep/ID, and I trusted the seller's ID better than my own. I wound up setting it on the shelf for...a couple years. Fast forward to about a week ago. I was cleaning out my fossil storage 'area' and I came upon this bone again. I again thought it didn't look much like a rib, and decided to google different kinds of dinosaur spikes. After scrolling through all kinds of ankylosaurs, stegosaurs, triceratops, etc. I came upon Styracosaurus. It bore a passing resemblance to the parietal spike on its frill, and I figured I better start prepping it. After prepping it, I was blown away. Not only does the bone have a tendon attached, but there are all kinds of subtle curvatures you couldn't see with the layer of dirt that had covered it. The texture is very unusual too, and the bone is actually really thin! The tip comes to a point and gradually twists. It's hard to describe, so I've included a bunch of pictures. Anyway, after researching more about the sub-family Centrosaurinae, I came across Rubeosaurus and Einiosaurus; which both have spikes that are EXTREMELY similar to the bone I have. If this thing is a rib I'll eat my foot. Please let me know what you think! Any thoughts are much appreciated. -Lauren
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Hello all, I am setting up my comco dual tank micro blaster and I may be adding a second single tank micro blaster for three different blasters in my cabinet and I wanted to know what media others are running with their setup.
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Hello, I just recently found this forum, even though I've been collecting for many years. I like all fossils, but my special likes are brachiopods, fish and early mammals. I just recently built a shop in my garage, where my fossil prep area shares space with lapidary and model building. I try to get out collecting when I can, mostly in SE Minnesota and N.Iowa, and other places as the opportunities present themselves (on a 25th anniversary trip out west a couple years back, my wife and I spent a day splitting rocks for fossil fish in Wyoming). Right now, I'm just finishing up a 16" Mioplosus I found about 20 years ago, and then I'm moving on to a Hyracodon skull. Now, if I just had more time to do all this...
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I've been looking for hesperornis fossils for a while, and recently, an acquaintance presented me with a challenge: He would send me a bag of broken up hesperornis verts for me to assemble. In return, I had to send him the biggest and best vert back. He also warned me it could be a real headache. I took the challenge. Lo and behold! I was presented with over 60 broken pieces, some of which were tiny and terribly fragmented (not shown in picture) Nonetheless, I googled for pictures of hesperornis verts and put what limited knowledge I had on fossil assembly into this task. After 18 hours, this is what I got: All in all, it was a tiring but satisfying job and now I can happily say I am the proud owner of a chain of associated hesperornis verts
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I recently purchased another Huntonia oklahomae trilobite and am very pleased with it. However it does not have detailed eyes, I knew this when I purchased it but further inspection leads me to believe that the eyes are intact but have simply not been fully prepped. I am curious would it be possible to have the eyes professionally prepped to reveal the eye facets? If so what would be the risk of damaging the trilobite and approximately how much would it cost? Here is a picture, the trilobite does seem to be coated in some sort of clear coating, not sure if that makes a difference.
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Is Elmers School glue really not removable from fossils?
VRFossils posted a topic in Fossil Preparation
I'm a little confused. On the forums I have read a number of times (at least I thought I did) that Elmers school glue cannot be removed from a fossil, once it has dried. But just for the sake of experimenting, I coated a small rock in elmers glue and let it dry. After it sat in the warm sun for awhile and was good and dried, I put it in water. And almost immediately, the glue softened up and turned white and sticky again. I let it soak for awhile and then washed it off. The Elmers glue washed right off. Did I miss something? Or an I experimenting with the wrong kind of glue? I know Elmers glue is not very recommended for coating fossils, but I just got curious and wanted to experiment. :-) So if anybody can fill me in, that would be great! -
I have recently begun my journey into fossil prep, i'm using a dremel electric engraver as it seemed to be the best cheap tool. I have several ammonites from Yorkshire within nodules - these are very hard in the centre and consist of pyritised sediment. It is taking a very long time with the dremel using tungsten-carbide point, so just asking for any advice on how is best to try and get through these very hard bits. Cheers in advance!!
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I found this 'geodized snail' in a 25lb lot of kentucky geodes I got off of online years ago. I'm going to call it a geodized snail till one of you corrects me because thats how the seller referred to it in the post. Again, I haven't really prepped a fossil up to this point but I've gathered some information from this forum! From what I've gathered an airscribe would be a good way to start? Would it be safe to attempt to chisel off the larger chunk of matrix?
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I've always been interested in fossils but I've never even thought of prepping some till I joined the forums. I have some plant dense rocks from washington that I think would be good practice, but I don't know the first step to this process. I have a dremel tool and hopefully I'm going out to get some new tips soon. It's shale as far as I can tell. Thanks for any and all advice, tips, steps, etc you guys are willing to give!
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Hello everyone , this is my first post on here so go easy on me lol. I just bought this Eopachydiscus and im waiting on it in the mail. Is there anything i can do to clean it up a little ? or do you think i sjhould just leave it as is? thanks for your time ! p.s -its 12 inches across if you needed an idea of size.
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Found this video on Youtube, and thought it was pretty ingenious. I like the DIY blaster box idea, as well. Thought it might be an option for those of us who cannot break the bank to do our own fossil prep. This has given me some ideas to try out. Hope this helps someone out. Good luck!
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Okay, I may not have been particularly thorough in my searching the forum, but I read a lot about pin vice's and rarely see any photos of them. I've accumulated enough material that I'd like to begin prepping&learning. I figure this will be one of those sideline hobbies whereby I can just pick and peck along in quiet solitude and hopefully fairly low expense as I build skills. Would those who use pin vices recommend or post a photo with some dimensions of their vices? I'm sure this is one of those situations where they can be too small or too big. Also, I have read about body piercing needles, hypodermic needles and sewing machine needles. Are there other such things I should be on the lookout for? Thank you, Kato
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