Buy the deeper metal molds for embedding oversize tissues.  You can get 
these from Fisher, VWR, Thermo, etc to fit your cassettes.

If you use high profile disposable blades, you get less chatter, more 
stability during paraffin sections (tendons, decalcified bone, and very 
fibrous tissues) .  High profiles are just as sharp as low profile 
disposable blades.  Tendon may be a bit drier, so a gentle soak on warm 
then cold water may help, beware of overdehydration and never add heat to 
dehydration and clearing steps, that only dries out these tough tissues 
even more.   Propar should work fine and less hardening to this tissue or 
any other tissue, just make sure you rotate this out more frequently as 
this xylene substitute is a bit more sensitive to water carryover, xylene 
tends to clear water a bit better, but keeping Propar fresh with more 
frequent changes helps - this is dependent on how many tissues you put 
through a processor in a week?

What do you mean by "charge more tendon"?  or is that change knives more 
often when sectioning tendon?  You should be able to use disposable blades 
rather than permanent c profile knives (if that is what you are using?)



At 10:00 AM 4/5/2006, you wrote:
>Hello Histonet,
>
>Please, will someone send a tried and true protocol for paraffin 
>processing of  tendon? These people won't trim the pieces thin enough and 
>the cassettes sit up off the molds. The first few I used xylene and have 
>since used Propar and they are that much better. I still could use any 
>other helpful hints. Thanks muchly.
>Do you charge more tendon? I find I'm going through knives.
>
>Thanks for all your help.
>Mary Lou Norman
>
>
>
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Gayle Callis
MT,HT,HTL(ASCP)
Research Histopathology Supervisor
Veterinary Molecular Biology
Montana State University - Bozeman
PO Box 173610
Bozeman MT 59717-3610
406 994-6367
406 994-4303 (FAX)



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