I had Erie Scientific make a custom designed barrier slide just for our
lab's IHC.  It has approx 24 x 30 mm rectangle in center of slide with
white teflon barrier to prevent reagent from slip sliding all over surface
and overnight incubations.  They will do any color barrier you want.
Biogenex has barrier slides already made up but preferred my design mainly
for section placement, theirs are nice and I believe designed for their
stainer. Just picky.  However, call them and ask for a sample, they work
well.    

Curious, what happens when your pen breaks down?  I also use "pap pens"
(recently tried Vectors  with slight tinge of gray-blue in goo! and like
them!) draw lines across slide, above and below section for easier wicking,
then fix frozens sections on Plus charge slides with acetone or
acetone/alcohol, and barrier stays on slide the whole time.  Gave up
drawing circles since wicking from a curved edges was not as good as from a
corner.  Drawing with pap pen on a hydrated slide was a mess, and sections
were drying too fast, and it took too much time.  The barrier slides
eliminated this problem, work for paraffin or frozen sections.    

  At 01:14 PM 5/1/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi,
>Does anyone have a better alternative to PAP pens? Their membrane seems to 
>breakdown after a few soln changes.
>Thanks,
>Christine
>
>Christine McBride, M.S.
>Tulane University Medical Center
>Center for Gene Therapy
>SL-99
>1430 Tulane Ave.
>New Orleans, LA 70112
>cmcbride@tulane.edu
>Phone:(504) 988-7069 
>Fax:(504) 588-5326
>
>
>
Gayle Callis
Histopathology Supervisor
Veterinary Molecular Biology
Montana State University - Bozeman
Bozeman MT 59717-3610

406 994-6367
404 994-4303 (FAX)