Rita, we also process nerves and and upon embedding (our lab uses spurr
epoxy), cut the nerve in half and place one on its side and the other to be
sectioned cross(example: _0) using a flat mold; then polymerize 2 hrs, then
pop it out and embed on end (tissue up) using a cut away beem capsule; that
way pathologist gets cross section and longitudinal in one slide. One thing
I have learned with nerve sections is that you need to trim as much of the
epoxy as close to the tissue as possible so section will "open up" on the
warm plates. What temp are you warm plates? Ours begin at 65oC to "open up"
the epoxy section and let the 1% Acetone in distilled water evaporate and
then to adhere the section the slide is transferred to a 95oC warm plate.
Also try picking up not only routine sections but turn down the thickness
knob as if sectioning thins and pick up some of those sections. Hope this
helps you a little. Teresa
>We routinely cut transverse sections at 1 micron of rat peripheral nerves
>for Neurotoxicity studies embedded in Araldite resin. We float out on
>distilled water and dry on a hot plate before staining with toluidine blue.
>Unfortunately we often find that the sections don't flatten well and appear
>to trap small air bubbles beneath the sections. This doesn't happen with the
>longitudinal sections from the  same nerves. Any tips or comments please.