How do you prep at home?

[oilshale]

I would like to start a new thread: How do you prep at home? I hope there will be some interesting tricks, methods and equipment shared. 

Everyone is invited and encouraged to post their equipment, their experiences, their solutions to problems, and their preparation tricks here.

 

Let me start with my equipment.
We had an oil heater in the basement and an oil tank about 3000L in size. After the tubing in the boiler room burst twice in 25 years and the room was flooded with smelly diesel oil, we decided in 2016 to install a groundwater heat pump and scrap the oil heating including tank. I immediately took the opportunity, occupied the room and set up my sandblasting equipment there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I use two sandblasting units: on the right is my main DIY unit that I built a few years ago – the design instruction can be found here:

 

On the left is the small unit that I actually rarely use. I operate the small unit with iron powder that I have sieved over 45µm. This very fine iron powder trickles somewhat badly, therefore a magnetic vibrator is installed under the blasting agent tank.

In the large unit I use almost only iron powder, which I sieved over 150µm. Here, too, I have installed a vibrator, but not a magnetic vibrator, but a turbine vibrator driven by compressed air. With the large unit, I can work for longer than two hours and then I need a break anyway. Using a foot switch, a solenoid valve  and a pneumatic cylinder that squeezes off the hose to the blasting nozzle, I can interrupt the blasting flow almost instantly without a lot of abrasive running down. Iron powder is more expensive than bicarbonate, but since I can recover it, it is cheaper in the long run.  I got myself 25kg of iron powder in 2016 - that will still last for years.

For recovery, I use the two cyclones on the left. I blow the exhaust air into the open air.

I have installed strong permanent magnets in front of the intake opening of the cyclones

.

Since the chamber IS very large and most of the iron powder sediments beforehand, almost nothing gets into the cyclones - only rock dust. To clean the chamber from time to time, I use an electromagnet to conveniently collect the iron powder. With the electromagnet, I can also easily separate the rock dust from the iron powder. Some rock dust is carried away by the iron, but most of it remains when I switch on the electromagnet. And when I repeat the procedure with the electromagnet several times, the iron powder is almost free of rock dust.

 

Of course, since I can recover over 95% of the iron powder, I have to sift it frequently. This was too exhausting and boring for me. I have therefore built myself an automatic sieving unit. The sieves stand on a plywood board, which is mounted on four springs and can swing freely. The board is set in motion by a turbine vibrator driven by compressed air. Within a few minutes the material is sieved. So that I do not have to watch the whole time, I have built a mono-stable trigger circuit, which automatically switches off the solenoid valve after 10 min (the grey box in the picture below).

 

 

 

Within a few minutes, the material is sieved. So I do not have to pay attention all the time, I have built a simple circuit (mono-stable trigger circuit) for myself, which automatically switches off the solenoid valve for the turbine vibrator after about 10 min. The sieves are from China, not exactly the best quality, but quite sufficient for my purposes and available at a tolerable cost.

When sandblasting, I always work under a microscope. I bought my Olympus microscope cheap from Malaysia via the internet (at that time the method of quality control was changed in the semiconductor factories and the microscopes were discontinued). To achieve a sufficient working distance, I use Barlow lenses. I have a whole set of them.  With a 0.25x attachment lens I achieve a working distance of about 40 cm, but mostly Barlow lenses with a magnification factor of 0.3 or 0.4 and working distances of 18 to 35 cm are sufficient. For illumination I simply put two 50W LED lamps on the glass plate - then I don't need the ring light on the microscope.

 

The X-ray unit on the right side I found on a scrap pile and repaired it. I have to develop the X-ray images myself, but I can still do that from times when there were no digital cameras (you can tell that I am almost a fossil myself...).  The X-ray machine is operated from another room for safety reasons. For simple images, the device is still suitable - for better pictures I can go to Munich to the paleontology department there (but then I have to beg a little).

 

 

The compressor was too loud for me, I installed it in another room and moved a rigid compressed air line into the former boiler room (now prep room). Nevertheless, I regularly use hearing protectors (I can always say I didn't hear my wife calling me).

I make a lot of effort to produce dry air - as you can see on the pictures, I have three water separators connected in series (separators with 5µm, 1µm and 0.1µm pore size). Since then, I have had no more problems with clumped abrasive and blocked nozzles.

If, exceptionally, I want to use bicarbonate as a blasting medium, I have to clean the blasting chamber completely before and afterwards. Bicarbonate attacks the iron powder and it starts to rust. This wouldn't be too bad in itself, but it reduces the flowability of the powder noticeably.

Sometimes I use the box when I work with my pneumatic pens, but for that I actually built a smaller, simple preparation box (without suction).

As blasting nozzles, I usually use Renfert IT nozzles with nozzle openings between 0.6 and 1.2mm. As a rule of thumb, you can use "nozzle opening should be about 8 times the grain size". So, for the 150µm iron powder, I use a 1.2mm nozzle. When blasting, I rarely work with high pressure, usually 2 or 3 bar or less is sufficient for my substrates.  In the meantime, I also make the nozzles myself from tungsten carbide tubes. Complete blasting pens with a nozzle opening of 1.2mm (and only 1.2mm) can also be bought cheaply via Aliexpress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 21 by oilshale

[hadrosauridae]

dang, thats a heck of a home prep lab!  And a salvaged / replaired x-ray machine? thats insane!

[jpc]

wow... If I could actually use lines like... "The X-ray unit on the right side I found on a scrap pile and repaired it." I would also have a spiffy home made set up like this, but most of my gear is made by folks who make them in factories, not in the basement.   What a great set up.  I can use the word 'solenoid' in conversation (usually incorrectly) but to actually make something with one...beyond my skills.   

 

I am interested in the lights you have on your blast chamber.  Can you show us a photo of just the lights?  Thx

 

[oilshale]

On 9/21/2023 at 9:19 AM, jpc said:

wow... If I could actually use lines like... "The X-ray unit on the right side I found on a scrap pile and repaired it." I would also have a spiffy home made set up like this, but most of my gear is made by folks who make them in factories, not in the basement.   What a great set up.  I can use the word 'solenoid' in conversation (usually incorrectly) but to actually make something with one...beyond my skills.   

 

I am interested in the lights you have on your blast chamber.  Can you show us a photo of just the lights?  Thx

 

The assembly of the X-ray unit was not so difficult. An old dentist gave up his practice and two disassembled X-ray machines were lying in front of his house with other stuff. Unfortunately, they had been lying there for a few days before I found them. The control unit was lying in a puddle and all the cables were disconnected.
Do you mean the lights on the glass or the ones on the 3 sides?
The two bulbs on the glass are simple 50W LED bulbs like you find in hardware stores or online for about $20 to $30. I removed the motion sensor that came with the LED spotlight. I initially also installed 50W LED spotlights on the three sides. But they are of little use. The light comes in too sideways to be really helpful. Now I only use these lights when I clean the chamber. 
For preparation I bought a 20W UV LED chip that I can turn on when needed. This is very useful when I prepare for example crayfish from Solnhofen. They glow strongly in the near UV. The chip also emits small amounts of visible light. Therefore, I have placed a visible light filter in front of the chip to filter out interfering (visible) residual light. You have to be very careful and protect your eyes. You can hardly see that the chip is on and emits very harmful UV light for the eyes. When I work under the microscope, this is no longer a problem - I have a UV filter screwed in front of the Barlow lens.
 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by oilshale
Mixed up

[jpc]

Thanks for this update.  Gives me some good ideas.

[RJB]

Holy cow!  Im going to call you a genius now.  Make that MR. Genius.  Im going to go get my crayons now and try to draw a tree.

 

RB

[oilshale]

20 hours ago, RJB said:

Holy cow!  Im going to call you a genius now.  Make that MR. Genius.  Im going to go get my crayons now and try to draw a tree.

 

RB

Really not! In the German equivalent of TFF (steinkern.de) there is a very successful thread with the same title and more than 200 posts - @Ludwigia, @rocket and some others will surely know it.  There I have simply stolen the, as I believe, best ideas.  Some ideas come from me, but most of them are not mine, but the ideas of the community. That is exactly what I hope from the thread - exchange of ideas, tricks, suggestions, experience, and, very importantly of course, mistakes that could / should be avoided.

Edited September 23, 2023 by oilshale

[Ptychodus04]

Wow @oilshale that's impressive. I'll be employing the electromagnet idea. I'm currently picking up my abrasive with a large rare earth magnet in a ziplock bag. All fun and games until the bag gets a hole in it!

[oilshale]

I use soft iron powder for sandblasting - it's cheaper in the long run than bicarbonate, as I can recover and reprocess it. Having worked a lot with the sandblaster recently, I was annoyed by the constant cleaning of the blasting chamber. I do use an electromagnet to collect the iron powder, but it's a bit slow and tedious. Now I have a simpler solution: I sawed a hole in the bottom of the blasting chamber and attached a wide-necked plastic bottle with a screw cap underneath. I cut a correspondingly large hole in the lid of the plastic bottle and screwed the lid to the bottom of the blasting chamber. Now I can easily sweep the iron powder through the hole into the bottle, unscrew the bottle, and then sieve the iron powder.

Much easier.

Edited February 4 by oilshale

[oilshale]

This is a sharpening aid for tungsten carbide needles in airscribes - I discovered (and stole) the idea in the German-language equivalent of the TFF, the Steinkern ( Anspitzhilfe im Eigenbau für Hartmetallnadeln von Druckluftsticheln - Steinkern.de Forum )

The author Freakshow in the Steinkern.de forum wrote about it:

"I've always found it annoying to have to take the needles of my various pneumatic airscribes apart and reassemble them. So I came up with the idea of constructing a device that is much smaller than a lathe, that you can hang on the wall and that works with a micro drill or cordless screwdriver."
 

I can only agree with that - I feel the same way, so I set about rebuilding the device.
 

On one side there is a ball bearing with a small mandrel, which I turned from a piece of brass and which fits exactly into the Festo tap fittings of the air scribe.The angle plate is slightly bent to make it easier to insert the mandrel into the Festo tap fitting.

 

On the other side are two angle plates with mounted ball bearings. The airscribe can be placed here. To prevent the airscribe from moving along the longitudinal axis, these two ball bearings are slightly higher and the scribe lies on a slight incline.

 

The distance between the two ball bearings should be about 2 mm less than the thinnest airscribe you own and the distance between the ball bearing with the mandrel and both bearings at the front should be about 1 cm less than the length of your shortest airscribe (in my case a HW322).

I either sharpen the tungsten carbide needles by hand with a flat diamond file or I use a Dremel with a diamond disk, constantly turning the airscribe of course.

Airscribes wrapped in heat-shrink tubing often cannot be sharpened as the thickness of the tubing fluctuates.

Edited February 19 by oilshale

[oilshale]

I sometimes use preparation needles in a needle holder for fossils in soft rock. What bothered me was that the scraped-off rock dust remained on the fossil and obstructed the view of the fossil.  
I bought a brass "mini hand drill" (or "pin vise") from a Chinese internet platform - it cost me less than 5 euros including shipping to Germany.
I also bought some suitable tungsten carbide pins there, which I can grind to any shape I want with a diamond wheel.
I cut a thread into one side of the needle holder so that I can screw in a Festo QS plug-in connector.

 

 

 

Since the needle holder is hollow on the inside and the airflow exits at the front of the needle, I can permanently blow away the rock dust with a gentle airflow and always have a clear view of the fossil

 

.

 

This is just a simple and cheap solution - there are of course also more convenient air scrapers available from various stores.

Edited February 28 by oilshale

[NickG]

Do you have any photos or scans of your X-rays?

[oilshale]

1 hour ago, NickG said:

Do you have any photos or scans of your X-rays?

I don't have many at hand at the moment. Only a brachiopod together with a Codiacrinus from the Devonian of Bundenbach and a scan of an X-ray picture of Chelotriton paradoxus from the Miocene of Gracanica. Solnhofen doesn't work very well (I even don't try it anymore) and I haven't tried Green River yet. Liaoning, on the other hand, works relatively well. 

 

and prepped:

 

But of course, the pictures taken in a hospital or university are much better. For example this Monjurosuchus from Liaoning.

Edited February 28 by oilshale

[jpc]

On 2/19/2024 at 6:29 AM, oilshale said:

This is a sharpening aid for tungsten carbide needles in airscribes - I discovered (and stole) the idea in the German-language equivalent of the TFF, the Steinkern ( Anspitzhilfe im Eigenbau für Hartmetallnadeln von Druckluftsticheln - Steinkern.de Forum )

 

The author Freakshow in the Steinkern.de forum wrote about it:

"I've always found it annoying to have to take the needles of my various pneumatic airscribes apart and reassemble them. So I came up with the idea of constructing a device that is much smaller than a lathe, that you can hang on the wall and that works with a micro drill or cordless screwdriver."
 

I can only agree with that - I feel the same way, so I set about rebuilding the device.
 

On one side there is a ball bearing with a small mandrel, which I turned from a piece of brass and which fits exactly into the Festo tap fittings of the air scribe.The angle plate is slightly bent to make it easier to insert the mandrel into the Festo tap fitting.

 

On the other side are two angle plates with mounted ball bearings. The airscribe can be placed here. To prevent the airscribe from moving along the longitudinal axis, these two ball bearings are slightly higher and the scribe lies on a slight incline.

 

 

 

The distance between the two ball bearings should be about 2 mm less than the thinnest airscribe you own and the distance between the ball bearing with the mandrel and both bearings at the front should be about 1 cm less than the length of your shortest airscribe (in my case a HW322).

I either sharpen the tungsten carbide needles by hand with a flat diamond file or I use a Dremel with a diamond disk, constantly turning the airscribe of course.

Airscribes wrapped in heat-shrink tubing often cannot be sharpened as the thickness of the tubing fluctuates.

 

oilshale... Excellent set-up.  A few comments....this looks like a lot of work compared to just taking the tool apart and sharpening the stylus. But maybe I enjoy taking them apart more than you do.    : )   

I am not familiar with the tool you have in your pictures.  Does the stylus spin in its position, like it does in PaleoTools scribes (and older CP and Aro)?   If so, how do you make sure you are not just sharpening one side of the stylus.  i.e. as you spin the tool as you mentioned, does the stylus spin with it so that the point is centered?  I do a lot of microscope work and find that if the point is not centered it can be a pain in the butt.    

[oilshale]

4 hours ago, jpc said:

oilshale... Excellent set-up.  A few comments....this looks like a lot of work compared to just taking the tool apart and sharpening the stylus. But maybe I enjoy taking them apart more than you do.    : )   

I am not familiar with the tool you have in your pictures.  Does the stylus spin in its position, like it does in PaleoTools scribes (and older CP and Aro)?   If so, how do you make sure you are not just sharpening one side of the stylus.  i.e. as you spin the tool as you mentioned, does the stylus spin with it so that the point is centered?  I do a lot of microscope work and find that if the point is not centered it can be a pain in the butt.    

I always work under a microscope - either with an airscribe or with a sandblaster. 
With the HW322 from Hardy Winkler, you have the option of adjusting the impact hardness and stroke length using springs of different "hardness" and the width of the gap (red arrow).

If I close the gap completely, the chisel is fixed and cannot rotate.

The HW322 is my favorite airscribe because of its low air consumption and the adjustment options for stroke length and strength.
With my other HW airscribes (HW10 for coarser work and HW1 for finer work) I cannot adjust the stroke length, but the stylus does not turn there either.

Edited February 28 by oilshale