Dear Patsy,

Well all I can add to my last posting is that we have manufacturing &
supplying cryostats that section whole  calcified rat femur  successfully
for over 40 years, this work started for us at The Kennedy Inst. London by
Chayen & Bitensky, I am sure Dr. Dodd's has a workshop for his methods so
there would be no need for me to do one, as if this method is followed with
the correct equipment, successful bone sectioning will be the outcome with
less expense.

Alan Bright
Bright Instument Co. Ltd.



-----Original Message-----
From: Patsy.Ruegg@UCHSC.edu <Patsy.Ruegg@UCHSC.edu>
To: histonet@pathology.swmed.edu <histonet@pathology.swmed.edu>
Date: Thursday, June 03, 1999 07:38
Subject: more on bone frozen sections


>Alan,
>
>I hope you do not get "shoot down" for expressing your opinion and
>experience here.  I think that we all are just trying to do that.
>
>I have a lot of experience cutting frozen bone sections without
>decalcification.  I even had some good results using Dodd's method of
>embedding the bone in polyvinyl alcohol (which sets up much harder than
OCT)
>but this was on fairly small trephine samples of bone marrow biopsies.  A
>whole rat femur is another thing all together.  Believe me, I am the first
>to try something without buying expensive equipment or kits, etc.  I make
up
>my on GMA plastic because it is so much cheaper than using kits and I get
>better results.  I use only D profile tungsten carbide knives for bone
>sectioning, but I could not get sections of whole rat femur without using
>the tape transfer method, and it did really burn me to have to buy the tape
>system.
>
>This is my experience.  If you can get good frozen sections from calcified
>rat femur without using something like a tape transfer system then you are
a
>better man than me and I would hope that you would do a workshop and show
us
>all how to do it.
>
>Patsy Ruegg
>