Nw Ohio Trilobite

[hrguy54]

I recently cleaned this Phacops trilobite for a friend in the local Gem and Mineral club. He found it last August in a quarry near Paulding, OH. Only flaw is a missing upper lip.

Edited April 10, 2013 by hrguy54

[xonenine]

great job!

[Regg Cato]

8O that's impressive =D

[Fossildude19]

Well done.

Did you use air abrasives?

Regards,

[clfossils]

That is really cool looking, what do you do to prep something such as this?

[Herb]

Nice Phacops!

[hrguy54]

I only found my first trilobite less than a year ago, I developed my process on Ohio Ordivician brachiopods and horn corals. I used to use dental scalers but they do wear down and so tend to be way too expensive. Although Harbor Freight has some cheap ones with really fine tips, but they wear out very quickly.

The best, however, someone on the Forum mentioned last year.....safety pins. When new, they can get the really tight spots and as they dull down they can get the bigger stuff. And not expensive. And even after they've dulled down to where I don't use them they can still be used for whatever they're normally used for. For the bigger cleaning needs I use a dremel, and have even used a hammer and chisel.

In between scrapings I'll clean with water and a stiffer toothbrush. Occasionally I'll dip the toothbrush into a weak water/muriatic acid solution (10:1 -ish)(I've been doing this for years and have rarely had the problems people cringe about when I mention this part) and rinse with water.

My "old fashioned" process can be time consuming for some specimens, but I'm not really in a hurry and enjoy the process. I've posted others on the Forum in the past year so you can see it works.

Here's the tail...it seems people rarely show the tail of these guys.

Edited April 10, 2013 by hrguy54

[Fossildude19]

I only found my first trilobite less than a year ago, I developed my process on Ohio Ordivician brachiopods and horn corals. I used to use dental scalers but they do wear down and so tend to be way too expensive. Although Harbor Freight has some cheap ones with really fine tips, but they wear out very quickly.

The best, however, someone on the Forum mentioned last year.....safety pins. When new, they can get the really tight spots and as they dull down they can get the bigger stuff. And not expensive. And even after they've dulled down to where I don't use them they can still be used for whatever they're normally used for. For the bigger cleaning needs I use a dremel, and have even used a hammer and chisel.

In between scrapings I'll clean with water and a stiffer toothbrush. Occasionally I'll dip the toothbrush into a weak water/muriatic acid solution (10:1 -ish)(I've been doing this for years and have rarely had the problems people cringe about when I mention this part) and rinse with water.

My "old fashioned" process can be time consuming for some specimens, but I'm not really in a hurry and enjoy the process. I've posted others on the Forum in the past year so you can see it works.

Here's the tail...it seems people rarely show the tail of these guys.

Hrguy54,

Wow!!! That makes this trilo all the more impressive !

Thanks for the detailed look into your prep process.

Fantastic results.

Regards,

Edited April 10, 2013 by Fossildude19

[Rob Russell]

Beautiful Phacops! And a first rate prep job hrguy54!

[clfossils]

That prep work sounds laborious but it looks amazing. What was the matrix the trilobite was in? Was it a densely lithified sandstone or a limestone?

[hrguy54]

Limestone.

This guy was pretty clean to start with really, it took me less than 5 hours (off and on over a few days) to get to finished product. As you might expect, the bigger ones are often easier to clean....the "seams" aren't as tight.

[DevonianDigger]

Those are pretty sexy! Nicely done!

 

I haven't had much luck with pins on the P.D. stuff. The shale gets jammed up really good in the pleural lobes and the pins haven't given me particularly good results in that department. Crazy that it works so well for limestone considering it's harder. Maybe I've been using the wrong pins, lol. 

 

I'm off to buy some safety pins! Again, great work!