Prepping For Apartment Living

[dylandreiling]

Hey all!

 

I will be posting an update soon, but I recently took a quick trip to Penn Dixie to find a few bugs. Came home with quite a few little specimens. I have a question for the prep masters among us. I live in a very clean apartment (due to my wife) and have very little options for prepping the trilos I found there. What tools or techniques would you recommend that don't involve sand blasting or compressors? 

[Malcolmt]

Dental picks, pin vice, sewing needles, exacto knife, sharpening stone, a magnifying light, a toothbrush and baking soda

 

crazy glue

 

That's how we all start out

 

P.S. Ottawa to Penn Dixie is not a quick trip!!!!!

[Ptychodus04]

What @Malcolmt said. I would also suggest a cardboard beer flat with a junk towel in it to help catch the dust and rock bits. This can be carried outside and shaken into the flower bed.

 

I feel your pain. My wife is very clean and banished my prepping to the garage the moment we got one! Now, I get in trouble if I don't move her car out if she's home and I get dust on it.

[dylandreiling]

1 hour ago, Malcolmt said:

Dental picks, pin vice, sewing needles, exacto knife, sharpening stone, a magnifying light, a toothbrush and baking soda

 

crazy glue

 

That's how we all start out

 

P.S. Ottawa to Penn Dixie is not a quick trip!!!!!

 

Thank you! And I know! We were traveling through on business so I had to make it quick. I came away with a complete Greenops though! Am planning a trip this spring which will be much more rigorous.

 

@Ptychodus04 hahaha, ohhh women, eh?

[Malcolmt]

Wow a complete greenops... if it really looks to be complete don't try to prep it until you really know what you are doing. You find 1 of those for probably every 100 complete eldredgeops.

[dylandreiling]

11 hours ago, Malcolmt said:

Wow a complete greenops... if it really looks to be complete don't try to prep it until you really know what you are doing. You find 1 of those for probably every 100 complete eldredgeops.

 

Yepp, that was what I was thinking. I have a bunch of other pieces to practice on first.  

[dylandreiling]

20 hours ago, Malcolmt said:

Dental picks, pin vice, sewing needles, exacto knife, sharpening stone, a magnifying light, a toothbrush and baking soda

 

crazy glue

 

That's how we all start out

 

P.S. Ottawa to Penn Dixie is not a quick trip!!!!!

 

Quick question for you, this may sound silly, but how do you recommend I use baking soda?

[Kane]

16 minutes ago, dylandreiling said:

 

Quick question for you, this may sound silly, but how do you recommend I use baking soda?

Apart from its motley uses for deodorizing, teeth whitening, a cleaning agent, and so much more? If you have baking soda and vinegar, you have almost all the house supplies you'll ever need.  

 

In all seriousness, I've used baking soda and an old toothbrush to vigorously scrub some specimens. What you are doing is applying a light abrasive by hand. As some fossils (like those PD trilobites) are composed of a substance much harder than the baking soda, you are mostly removing grit. But, obviously, you want to take some care with too much elbow grease: just as there is probably a limit to how long you should use baking soda on your teeth in one session, you don't want to be scrubbing for too long. And it certainly would not be advisable for those fossils that can be flaky - such as Greenops.

[Malcolmt]

As Kane indicated with a toothbrush it can be used as a mild abrasive and polisher, wither wet or dry....

 

Definitely would not use it on a greenops

[Peat Burns]

21 hours ago, dylandreiling said:

 

Thank you! And I know! We were traveling through on business so I had to make it quick. I came away with a complete Greenops though! Am planning a trip this spring which will be much more rigorous.

 

@Ptychodus04 hahaha, ohhh women, eh?

Pics of Greenops please 

[dylandreiling]

2 hours ago, Kane said:

Apart from its motley uses for deodorizing, teeth whitening, a cleaning agent, and so much more? If you have baking soda and vinegar, you have almost all the house supplies you'll ever need.  

 

In all seriousness, I've used baking soda and an old toothbrush to vigorously scrub some specimens. What you are doing is applying a light abrasive by hand. As some fossils (like those PD trilobites) are composed of a substance much harder than the baking soda, you are mostly removing grit. But, obviously, you want to take some care with too much elbow grease: just as there is probably a limit to how long you should use baking soda on your teeth in one session, you don't want to be scrubbing for too long. And it certainly would not be advisable for those fossils that can be flaky - such as Greenops.

 

 

Ah! Thank you. I figured that was the use of baking soda. You can never be too careful.   

 

@Peat Burns I'll post a pic of it tomorrow, still travelling. But I'll see if I can post it up. It's going to a an interesting prep job. I'm a bit intimidated. 

[Peat Burns]

5 hours ago, dylandreiling said:

 

@Peat Burns I'll post a pic of it tomorrow, still travelling. But I'll see if I can post it up. It's going to a an interesting prep job. I'm a bit intimidated. 

A whole Greenops is a great find.  I have one beat up one from Penn Dixie, and the rest are pygidia.  Looking forward to seeing your find .  A little practice on the Eldredgeops along with some research on prepping techniques will help build your skill and confidence.  You can do some fine work with nothing more than a pin vice with a hypodermic needle and some patience. 

[Ptychodus04]

14 hours ago, dylandreiling said:

@Peat Burns It's going to a an interesting prep job. I'm a bit intimidated. 

 

I would suggest that you not even consider an attempt until you have some excellent results on the more common ranas. It is amazingly easy to ruin a fossil while prepping it. Play with a few of them and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. scratches and gouges with the tool are your most likely error (you'll do it, it's ok every prepper ruins some when learning).

[dylandreiling]

@Peat Burns here's a look at the greenops. It's in a very awkward position. My wife scuffed the eye a bit when she was putting it in the car, as you can see below. 

 

 

 

[Ptychodus04]

Nice. It looks like the bruised eye might recover. It doesn't look too deep.

[Peat Burns]

@dylandreiling that looks like a good one!  I like the position it's in. It will make a nice presentation with some sculpting.  Keep us posted.