just another little aside about glass knives in general.
in my experience ralph type knives were very good for cutting larger pieces of
soft tissues embedded in gma, but i found them to be too fragile to cut
mineralized bone embedded in gma and thought the triangle knife edges were a
little less fragile, but ultimately for bone i had to abandon glass knives all
together and go to tungsten carbide because the fragile glass knife edges just
did not hold up for cutting bone, too many scratches.
my 2 cents worth.
patsy

"Monson, Frederick C." wrote:

> No! No!  Patsy.  Ralph knives were originally made by Ralph without a Ralph
> knife maker!  Even worse, Ralph didn't even make the Ralph Knife Maker (It
> would have been called "Ralph's Knife Maker"), no money for the use of his
> name either.  Ralph made his knives by scoring a 6mm thick long strip of
> ultramicrotomy glass, then he rested the glass strip on a wooden stirring
> stick so that the score lay slightly to the left or right, but parallel to
> the stick.  Then he pressed with a Ralph amount of force to get the strip to
> break (he wasn't wearing his glasses, and his mother said he would put his
> eyes out!).  The result was a short strip with a cutting edge that extended
> the full width of the strip.  Ralph mounted the glass knife on a length of
> steel with some adhesive, I used hot glue, and cut 2um sections on his
> rotary microtome from GMA blocks.
>
> Ralph's real claim to fame is that no one remembers whether "Ralph" is the
> first or last name, but he is better known than Student who is more famous
> than the totally anonymous fabricator (also a student!) of FITC from F.
>
> If I read this, I won't be able to send it.
>
> Fred
>
> Frederick C. Monson, PhD
> Center for Advanced Scientific Imaging
> Schmucker II Science Center
> West Chester University
> South Church Street
> West Chester, Pennsylvania, USA, 19383
> Phone:  610-738-0437
> FAX:  610-738-0437
> fmonson@wcupa.edu
> CASI URL:  http://darwin/wcupa.edu/casi/
> WCUPA URL:  http://www.wcupa.edu/
> Visitors URL:  http://www.wcupa.edu/_visitors/
>
> > ----------
> > From:         rueggp
> > Sent:         Thursday, April 11, 2002 11:23 AM
> > To:   Margaret Gondo
> > Cc:   HistoNet Server
> > Subject:      Re: Sorvall 45700 Glass Knife Maker
> >
> > NO
> > The Sorvall knife maker makes the cut on the thickness of the glass, you
> > would need a Ralph Knife maker to cut Ralph Knives.
> > Patsy
> >
> > Margaret Gondo wrote:
> >
> > > Hi All -
> > >
> > > I have unearthed a Sorvall 45700 Glass Knife Maker.  I can't seem to
> > > locate any other information on this.  I'm just curious if anyone out in
> > > Histoland knows if the instrument will make a Ralph Knife.
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance,
> > > Margaret
> >
> >
> >