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Hey all. I am looking at getting an electric hand held chisel. I have a few in mind but cannot find one with rock chisels for a hand held. Anyone have a suggestion. Yes, air with a compressor would be better but noise is an issue as I like working in the garage very early.

So I had previously bought an electric diamond tip Dremel but I want to upgrade to a faster way to break off matrix because at this rate fossils are taking me 8+ hours for a mediocre job. I am now looking seriously into air scribes because their efficiency and ease on my hands and time. So I have a budget of around 400$ (total for the airscribe and compressor) I was looking into the Chicago pneumatic CP9361 which is 260$ on amazon but its from Hungary and the reviews say sometimes it doesn't work. And I saw another for 900$. So I am confused on how much this should cost. If I am going to spend nearly 260 I want it to work. I have decided that maybe I should play it safer and try out a less expensive scribe *because I still need to buy a compressor* and this is my next option (see photos) My questions are 1. Does this look like it would be slightly faster than a 20$ electric Dremel. 2. Do you think this will be a good tool for basic fossil prep work. 3. Where can I buy a compressor? (budget of 200$) 4. What should I look for in an air compressor to fit the needs of this scribe. Thank you for any feedback, hopefully someone can help out a novice like me

Hi All! I live in Northern California, in the middle if the Fransician Complex, and a lot of the fossils that I encounter here are contained within very hard greywacke matrix. This stuff is incredibly well cemented together, and only becomes harder in concretions. This hard stone has prevented me from prepping these fossils. I'm unsure if an ascribe will work on greywacke, I've only seen references on this forum to use soft limestones and shales. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. -Nick

Hey all! I was looking for a bit of advice on the best way for me to clean up this Eldredgeops rana that I found in Paulding, Ohio just yesterday. Had to knock it out of a larger chunk of shale and luckily it came out clean. It is an inch across both ways. The only issue is there is still some shale in between the thorax segments, on the eyes and glabella, and covering what I am hoping to be a squished pygidium (fingers crossed). I have got some dental picks that I have used before but that's all I have as I can't afford any blasters of air scribes. I am just a bit nervous about using the picks on this piece as I do not want to damage it or scratch the fossil itself. Would soaking in vinegar help at all? Regards, Connor

Thought this would be an interesting one for anybody overseas, who has never heard of Yorkshire’s Golden Cannonballs. Theyre only found in the UK along the Yorkshire coastline. With a 1/15 chance of having something inside, it’s safe to say they can be quite rare, and are always sought after. More often than not, they either contain one, or multiples of Eleganticeras ammonites inside. I’ll never tire of finding them. Theyre found in the shake jet rocks, and take hours to polish up the iron pyrite to give them their golden glow of you like. Here’s one I recently prepared.

Hey folks, I was wondering how you guys would approach something like this (or if samples like this are even worth your time!) There's so much going on I'm a little confused as to how and where to start. would you remove the gastropods individually, break the rock apart, sacrifice the broken ones in the search for more complete specimens, leave it as is? I went through the pinned messages and learned a lot, but was curious if anyone's come across similar types of rock and could give some insight. My goal is to hopefully find and extract some of the more complete specimens, and maybe discover some trilobites along the way! The plan was to chisel out as many surface fossils as possible, then strike the rocks with a sledge hammer to break up the pieces, give them a good hard scrubbing, then use my steel picks and chisels to poke around further however the resources provided to me by @FossilDAWG and @Kane (thanks again by the way!) described a number of rare, some now lost, trilobite specices from the same formation found in similar contexts alongside Ceratopea Canadensis, so maybe a lighter touch might be in order? I'm still a little scarred from the time I put a pickaxe right through an almost complete piece of 1st century terra sigillata once upon a dig </3 I'll definitely be looking into air pens/compressors (looking at you ME-9100) as well, but on my pay that's one of those 'somewhere down the line' sorts of purchases. If those are definitely the way to go however, I can always shelve these for that later day...they've been sitting around in a forest for this long, another few months wont hurt! I did notice while cleaning the sample below that there appeared to be two separate matrices, a softer one which I assume was the sand/silt and then the hard dark rock underneath. I've got a much bigger slab with a lot more going on, but I grabbed this little one to practice and learn on! My first target is that crystallized one which is slightly exposed on the top (bottom center of the picture on the right) followed by whatever that is beside it and that mussel looking fellow.

Hi guys, Recently I ordered a partial wooly rhino skull and as you could imagine I was on the brink of tears when it arrived. I ordered from overseas and someone must have dropped the box or something? but I am contacting the seller to see if I could get a partial refund (but I have my doubts). So I am trying to be positive and make this my "not so little" prep project, there is one problem though. I have no idea what I'm doing! (I don't even know if It's salvageable) So this is where you amazing people come in. I would love to get this looking as original as possible and was wondering if there was a product for that, or if I could just use household items, Or maybe there's some other solution that is foreign to me? Anyway, I would love to here every idea and any advice you've got. I have taken some pictures that are listed below, the last two are it in the condition before it was sent. If you need any more pictures to refer to, Please! contact me otherwise thanks for taking the time to read this and hope to hear from you soon. Thanks so much, Ryan.

I found this lovely calcite ammonite at Saltwick Bay along the Yorkshire coast of the UK a while back. There was no shell remaining from what I can tell, leaving just the calcite formed inside. Not sure if this is common at all?

A few months back, I spent three days along the Whitby coastline. It was a very good three days of collecting, but my last find of them days, is to this day my best find. I had decided to head to Runswick Bay. My legs and back were exhausted, so decided the short walk to to car park would be fairly light on the legs. Now, in my experience, Runswick hasn’t really produced much in the past for me, so I hadn’t gotten my hopes up too much. So you can imagine my shock, when I see a rather large nodule day there in Situ. I’ll let the pictures say the rest

I have never attempted to remove a fossil from rock. I don't have any tools, so I am looking to invest in tools needed. What's the best way to extract the fossil??

While doing a little fossil presentation to a local "Intro to Geology" class I did it..... Broke both eye stalks off this Asaphus kowalewskii. Any helpful tips from you folks regarding ways to align and hold the pieces while adhesive sets? And......lesson learned about transporting fragile specimens. :-(

Hi Everyone! I hope this finds everyone well and I love the new look! (thats how long Ive been gone) I was on here last year buggin everyone for tips on prepping and unfortunately, I work a job that does not allow me the time much time to prep during the summer, but I have been practicing a little here and there. I do have AWESOME NEWS! my amazing husband got me a CP9160!! (I actually squealed when i opened the box) I'm ready to hunker down with my magnifying light and prep! Here are 3 I have been practicing on, just getting the hang of the air scribe, and not blowing nacre to oblivion (as opposed to chipping away at it with my electric engraver).... I have looked at a bunch of different "glues" but do you guys have any recommendations for keeping things together as I work? I was scoping out Paleobond, but I have no idea which one to get to select based on porousness. I'd post "before" pics, but I didnt actually take any since I was just dinkin and was surprised at what I have been uncovering. The first 2 actually had very little showing. And Im debating how to remove that large amount of matrix on the first one. The last one has some cool odds and ends so I thought Id try and clean it up some. ::Edit:: I lied, I found one - the first picture is the before of the 2nd picture. -Dessa

A BIG shout out to Malcolm--I obtained some dispensing 18 gauge needles and hot glued them to my mini-blaster and my paasche abrader--wow what a difference. Note the lighted magnifier is mounted where I can use it with both blast cabinets.