Hi Marjorie,

Taking it that this is not a set up.............
When I was a very raw junior, one of our laboratory jokes was to embed a
piece of soap in wax and give it to the newest recruit of the department to
try and cut a section. I was the next on the hit list and of course when I
cut a lovely 3 microns section was very  disappointed when it hit the water
bath and disappeared. However, I floated it out on alcohol and my senior
member of staff was amazed I had got any thing of the block! Let alone a
section you could see.
 I am in the same position were the College of Engineering have asked me to
cut thin sections of black polythene waste pipes!
Give it a try..............

Evelyn Kaplan
Dept of Pathology,
Sultan Qaboos University,
Muscat, Oman