Fossil Storage Recommendation?

[FossilDAWG]

9 minutes ago, Bobby Rico said:

Great collection mike. 

His collection is amazing!!

Don

[Nimravis]

@Bobby Rico and @MikeR Nice fossils and displays.

[FossilDAWG]

@MikeR

 

I have some of those map cabinets and I agree they work pretty well.  One issue I have though is that they only pull out so far, and so the back 1/3 or so is never visible unless you actually remove the drawer, which can be tricky (and dangerous to the fossils).  How do you deal with that issue?

 

Don

[Bobby Rico]

29 minutes ago, Nimravis said:

@Bobby Rico and @MikeR Nice fossils and displays.

Thank you very much Ralph.

 

[MikeR]

54 minutes ago, FossilDAWG said:

@MikeR

 

I have some of those map cabinets and I agree they work pretty well.  One issue I have though is that they only pull out so far, and so the back 1/3 or so is never visible unless you actually remove the drawer, which can be tricky (and dangerous to the fossils).  How do you deal with that issue?

 

Don

Hi Don

 

For display purposes, I use a cheap adjustable curtain rod from Walmart to push the display boxes forward.  It wastes space however what good does it do if you can't see the specimens.

 

Also you have seen my U.S. gastropod display cabinet which is a converted lab bench with smaller drawers.  These can easily be removed where the map drawers cannot.

 

Mike

[JohnBrewer]

15 hours ago, Wrangellian said:

e is bad too, like oak? I guess that's not surprising, but it narrows the options for wood when building these things. What else should be avoided?

I've been using alder and birch plywood mainly, but have used pine. The pine might be treated/kiln-dried, and I hope any gas problem is neutralized this way.

I don’t think oak or even pine is necessarily bad unless it’s new. Pine does give off organic chemicals called terpenes (that’s where terpentine comes from). I’d personally stick to hardwoods. 

 

Not sure where the ‘oak is bad’ as mentioned above. Museums all over the world have cabinets made of oak as well as other hardwoods albeit ones that were manufactured years ago. Certainly The Nation Media Museum where I sometimes do research, Manchester Museum and John Ryland’s Library use wooden cabinets 

 

Maybe one of our members who works in a museum would know or could ask his/her colleagues. 

[Fossildude19]

28 minutes ago, JohnBrewer said:

I don’t think oak or even pine is necessarily bad unless it’s new. Pine does give off organic chemicals called terpenes (that’s where terpentine comes from). I’d personally stick to hardwoods. 

 

Not sure where the ‘oak is bad’ as mentioned above. Museums all over the world have cabinets made of oak as well as other hardwoods albeit ones that were manufactured years ago. Certainly The Nation Media Museum where I sometimes do research, Manchester Museum and John Ryland’s Library use wooden cabinets 

 

Maybe one of our members who works in a museum would know or could ask his/her colleagues. 

See the following links:

 

LINK 1

LINK 2

LINK 3

 

 

[JohnBrewer]

13 minutes ago, Fossildude19 said:

See the following links:

 

LINK 1

LINK 2

LINK 3

 

 

I’m happy keeping my collections in cabinets made from oak providing its old enough to have fully out gassed. I wouldn’t house anything important in cabinets made from new wood. 

[Wrangellian]

Maybe kiln-dried wood is ok too - would that cook off any gases that might otherwise take years to leak out?

[Wrangellian]

15 hours ago, Bobby Rico said:

Fantastic @Wrangellian You are a real craftsman.

Just an idea empty out half your draws, add the contents of them to the Secret Santa and then send the fossil to me and you will save yourself lots of time by Not spending weeks making new cabinets.   

Yeah, then you'd have to find or build more cabinets!  I can't take credit for all of the work, I had help from my dad and a friend. They're not exactly professional quality but they do the trick.

I like your 'old TV' collection. btw I hope you have them catalogued, you don't want to rely on memory to record where they're from/etc !  Look at Mike's collection...

[Bobby Rico]

Thank you very much .Yes most are cataloged , numbered and in the last year I have started an digital archive. Some of the fossil that people have given me , only have limited amount of info.  

 

Cheers bobby

[Peat Burns]

On 11/10/2017 at 12:25 PM, MikeR said:

I use old map storage cabinets.  New they are pricey but the older used cabinets can be found around $200 or less and work very well with smaller fossils such as shells.

Magnificent!  Love the black box lining.

[Marlowe]

I envy you all so much!

[MRfossilMISTER]

[Bobby Rico]

I found this last year and it works fantastically. I hope you don’t mind me adding a link 

 

 

[siteseer]

The 70's and 80's answer for no-cost fossil storage was beer/soda flats.  You can get them for free at grocery stores.  Some slide into another rather tightly so they are great for storage.  It's something you can do until you decide on something more for display.  Of course, you can upgrade over time with those staple-together flats you can buy at mineral/fossil shows.  They come in 2-inch, 3-inch, and larger heights.  For things like shark teeth a 3-inch flat holds a lot of teeth.

 

I like those stackable Sterilite tubs.  You can create layers within them with pieces of thick cardboard if you are storing a bunch of small stuff rather than something over hand-size like a whale vertebra or a matrix chunk. 

 

How's that for cheap?