We ground down our blocks to fit in whatever holder we had OR superglue the 
block to a correct diameter sized but blank PMMA block - we just made a 
bunch of those to keep around.  The ends of the bone block and blank block 
being interfaced should be flat surfaces but rough to ensure the superglue 
really holds at the interface, like gluing a slab section to a plastic 
slide.  You don't want blocks popping off during trim or microtoming.  In 
fact, we would grind the block face down to the bone before trimming to 
save the tungsten carbide edge and speed up trimming this plastic.

PMMA will need rock solid adhesive holding and you do not sacrifice your 
holder to some messy glue.

    At 07:34 AM 8/25/2005, you wrote:
>I just bought the accessory for our RM2255 microtome so we could use it
>for sectioning our PMMA embedded samples.  The inserts that came with it
>are 6, 15, and 25 mm in diameter.  It appears that unless the diameter
>of the block is almost exactly this measurement, the holder will not
>work.  Is this truly the case or is there some adjustment we aren't
>aware of?  Unfortunately as well, the vials we used for embedding are
>smaller than 25 mm but larger than 15.  We plan to either mount them
>onto a block holder with adhesive and try to cut them that way, or use a
>dremel or other power tool to reduce the diameter TO 15 mm.  Are there
>other things we can do that I'm just not seeing?
>
>Thanks!
>
>Teri Johnson
>Managing Director Histology Facility
>Stowers Institute for Medical Research
>1000 E. 50th St.
>Kansas City, MO 64133
>
>_______________________________________________
>Histonet mailing list
>Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu
>http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet

Gayle Callis
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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