Dear Histonetters,
I first want to thank those who helped me with solving the problem I had with the Van Gieson's solution I was using. I'm still having a little problem with the stain. After differentiating in 2% ferric chloride (till I get black fibers on a gray background), rinising in water, rinsing in hypo solution for 1min, rinsing in water, then counterstaining with VG's solution for 5 min, I find that the nuclei don't stain very well, and that gray background is still there (as opposed to the yellow background from the picric acid). Also, I lose some of the staining on the fibers. I'm not sure if I'm losing the staining during dehydrations and clearing, but what I do is right after counterstaining, I wash my slides with slighty acidified water, then dehydrate in 3X 100% ethanol, and 3 X xylene. So I don't think my problem is from the last step. But I'm sure somebody out there knows better. Anyone, help?

Nidal E Muvarak
Associate Research Specialist
Department of Biomedical Engineering
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1550 Engineering Dr.; Rm. 2158
Madison, WI 53706-1609
Lab: (608) 265-8921; Office: (608) 265-4205; 
Home: (608) 256-7934; Cell: (608) 332-6068