Besides carefully standing vertically and tapping my slides dry after
picking them up off the water bath, I put them in a rack on their sides and
place them over a small fan box that my husband made for me.  The fan is
incased in a wire box and is about 4 inches square, the rack of 25 slides
sits on top of the fan (this fan is very gentle, he put a reastat or
something on it to reduce the motor power so it won't blow too hard) and let
them dry/drain before I do any heating to melt the paraffin.  I usually
leave them on the fan for 10-20 min. then lay them flat on a heat plate set
at 55dc for 30 min., I never have sections fall off unless they are
cartilage and bone but that is a different issue altogether.
Patsy 


Patsy Ruegg, HT(ASCP)QIHC
IHCtech, LLC
Fitzsimmons BioScience Park
12635 Montview Blvd. Suite 216
Aurora, CO 80010
P-720-859-4060
F-720-859-4110
wk email pruegg@ihctech.net
web site www.ihctech.net
 

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-----Original Message-----
From: histonet-bounces@lists.utsouthwestern.edu
[mailto:histonet-bounces@lists.utsouthwestern.edu] On Behalf Of John Kiernan
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2006 12:51 AM
To: Steven Coakley
Cc: Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu
Subject: Re: [Histonet] air drying-white sections??

Dear Steven Coakley,

Please explain how you "air dry my sections before drying them".

Also, describe exactly what you do with the kimwipe (assuming that a kimwipe
is a small paper hanky). 

If you're working with paraffin sections, it's important to let all the
water drain off the slides (vertically) before letting the temperature rise
to anywhere near the softening point of the wax. 
Histology waxes with 58C "melting points" soften at about 45C. If you use a
hotplate, it gets uncomfortably hot for an applied hand in 10-20 seconds at
45C. That's the maximum allowable temperature before making a decision to
melt the wax. 

The film of water between the ribbon and the glass must be all gone before
you even think about melting the wax. This advice is in every textbook of
histotechnology (microtechnique) published since about 1880, and it has
appeared often in Histonet for ?10 years. 
The archives at http://histosearch.com  are full of wisdom in this field. 

John Kiernan
Anatomy, UWO
London, Canada
____________________
Steven Coakley wrote:
> 
> I've noticed that when I air dry my sections before drying them some of
them are turning a chauky white.  Might that indicate anything important.  I
really have not noticed this before in other places I work.  I wipe off as
much excess water with a kimwipe prior to letting the sections air dry
vertically.  Any thoughts.
> 
>   Steve
===========

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