Jennifer,
I have not worked with animal tissue before but I do work with skin specimens.
They become brittle if I over dehydrate. I would suggest you should try
eliminating one of your absolute alcohols.
Mequita

Philopena, Jennifer wrote:

> Hi.  I work with a Shandon Citadel 2000 and I (try to) process rat and mouse
> tissues (liver, lung, spleen, kidney, brain, heart).  The livers and spleens
> that I process are consistently very dry.  This is my procedure: 24 hours in
> 10% neutral buffered formalin, store in 70% reagent alcohol, 20min in 80%
> reagent alcohol, 2X 20min in 95% reagent alcohol, 3X 20min in 100% reagent
> alcohol, 3X 20min in Propar (Xylene substitute), 2X 20min in paraffin
> (Paraplast Plus).  I'd like to fix this problem with the tissues being
> over-dehydrated.
> Thanks.
> Jennifer Philopena