Hi Gary,

I work with JB-4 glycolmethacrylate alot.  I usally use thicker sections
(3-4 micron) because I like the staining density better.  On sections
large enough to do this, I use a sable brush and fine forcepts to hold the
section in place on the "side" of the knife or knife holder and brush the
section smooth.  You can fog it with you breath as you do this to get it
to stay put once the brush has unfolded it....tack the curly end down with
the brush while you breath on the section.  Then use the forcepts to drop
the flattened section in a waterbath of H2O and amonia (I add 20 ml of
strong amonia to 3L of distilled H2O and keep it on hand for days or
weeks).  The waterbath is a large glass staining dish filled with the
amonia solution that is sitting on my slide warmer- set at 60-70 deg. C.
The section will react with the water and spread out more (or stick to
anywhing it comes in contact with, so make sure your forcepts
don't touch the water and keep the forcepts dry).  Pick the section up on
a clean slide and set the slide on the warmer to dry.  I usually put 3-5
sections on each slide, one at a time.

Hope this helps.

Karen

On Mon, 27 Mar 2000, Gary Radice wrote:

> We are cutting glycolmethacrylate sections, around 1 micrometer thick, with
> glass knives and are having a difficult time transfering sections to
> microscope slides without the sections folding. How do you do it/ Does
> anyone have a favorite technique they would care to share?
> 
> Gary P. Radice			gradice@richmond.edu
> Associate Professor of Biology		804 289 8107 (voice)
> University of Richmond		804 289 8233 (FAX)
> Richmond VA 23173		http://www.science.richmond.edu/~radice
> 
> 
> 
>