I must concur with our Samurai and add to watch out that all of the nails are 
removed too.

I am surprized that TC will not cut the hoof, maybe that horny material is 
tougher than and certainly as hard as bone. You now have two options:
"Find" a fine diamond wire saw. The best will cut and "polish" in one pass and 
take section under 30 um - though that may be a  big ask with such large 
sections.
The other method, I have previously mentioned on this list, is to take your 
sections to a Geology department or a business that cuts petrographic sections 
for mining and other companies. They will grind the specimen flat, Araldite it 
to a large slide and then cut off most of the remaining hoof. After that they 
grind and polish the specimen down to 30um or considerably less.
To do a whole hoof cross-section would be a work of art - I think I know 
somebody in our town in Australia who could. Smaller sections would be 
infinitely easier.
Cheers
Jim Darley
ProSciTech                 Microscopy PLUS
PO Box 111, Thuringowa  QLD  4817  Australia
Ph +61 7 4774 0370  Fax:+61 7 4789 2313  service@proscitech.com
Great microscopy catalogue, 500 Links, MSDS, User Notes
ABN: 99 724 136 560                      www.proscitech.com

On Tuesday, November 14, 2000 9:59 AM, RSRICHMOND@aol.com 
[SMTP:RSRICHMOND@aol.com] wrote:
> Sanjay Sharma asks:
>
> >>As part of ongoing research at our company I was trying to cut uniform
> >>cross
> sections of bovine hooves across the horizontal plane. We recently bought a
> new
> sliding microtome (HM 440E, Carl Zeiss, Inc.) and were using it with a
> tungsten carbide knife. Unfortunately the tissue is much harder than what we
> expected and we were unsuccessful.<<
>
> Try taking the horseshoe off first....
>
> This list is so refreshing. It's nice to know that some people out there have
>
> problems worse than sentinel lymph nodes!
>
> Bob Richmond
> Samurai Pathologist
> Knoxville TN