Fossil prep experiment-vinlandostrophia

[Tunis]

Two summers ago, on a roundabout trip to Detroit from Texas, stumbled across an awesome road cut by accident coming out from Nashville. Wasn’t thinking about fossils, and learned after the fact that Nashville was loaded with brachiopods. Anyways, I have been messing around with the idea of cleaning what was brought back. Here is my first attempt at cleaning an imperfect specimen, just to see how well it would clean up. Any tips for further cleanup would be welcomed.

 

[Huntonia]

Looks nice!

What tools are you using to prep these? 

[Ludwigia]

Looks fine as is to me. I'll echo my predecessor. Hand tools?

[Tunis]

Simple hand tools. Very slow going though. Warm water, soap and a brush with harder plastic bristles. Using a large safety pin to slowly loosen the matrix, and then follow up with the brush. If I happen to leave any slight surface scratches on the shell, I have found that a Q tip with a little bit of water acts as a good buffer to “polish” them out. Tried vinegar but got no results in removing any matrix. Thanks for the comments.

[LabRatKing]

Looks good to me! Vinegar can be helpful in some formations, but useless in others as you discovered. I have been known to soak brachs in water for dayas and even weeks before I start the detail prep work on them. I enjoy the zen of peck and scratch preps.