New Members amiint1 Posted June 4, 2010 New Members Share Posted June 4, 2010 (edited) Hi I am new to the forum and found a nice mammoth tooth last weekend that has been soaking in the ocean for the past few thousand years. Currently it is sitting in a bucket of fresh water any advice for stabilizing would be helpful. Thanks Edited June 4, 2010 by amiint1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fossildude19 Posted June 4, 2010 Share Posted June 4, 2010 (edited) Hello, and Welcome to the Forum from CT! Nice Tooth!! Here is a link to a thread here on the Forum: http://www.thefossil...er&fromsearch=1 I just searched "Stabilizer" and came up this - Hope it helps! Thanks for sharing with us, and Weclome, again! Regards, PS... Similar thread here, as well: http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?showtopic=13420 Edited June 4, 2010 by Fossildude19 Tim - VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER VFOTM --- APRIL - 2015 IPFOTM -- MAY - 2024 _________________________________________________________________________________ "In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." John Muir ~ ~ ~ ~ ><))))( *> About Me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted June 4, 2010 Share Posted June 4, 2010 do yourself a favor and do it right. i've read all manner of junk on the subject. but you've got quite a bit of time while you're trying to get the salt out to educate yourself on how to properly stabilize and consolidate that fossil. link if you read enough on the subject, you will learn that some are strongly advocating methods which have been rejected as unsuitable by professionals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted June 4, 2010 Share Posted June 4, 2010 Pretty tooth! Florida ocean find? "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sundancer73 Posted June 4, 2010 Share Posted June 4, 2010 Very nice tooth! What are it's dimensions? ~Mike All your fossils are belong to us Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
New Members amiint1 Posted June 4, 2010 Author New Members Share Posted June 4, 2010 Thanks for all the help and i really appreciate the links, so much info avail. The size is roughly 9"long x4" wide and 6" deep. yes it is a florida tooth. I dive quite often but this is the most colorful tooth i have found. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wRick Posted June 11, 2010 Share Posted June 11, 2010 do yourself a favor and do it right. i've read all manner of junk on the subject. but you've got quite a bit of time while you're trying to get the salt out to educate yourself on how to properly stabilize and consolidate that fossil. link if you read enough on the subject, you will learn that some are strongly advocating methods which have been rejected as unsuitable by professionals. Tracer, I'm confused. Are you suggesting that tooth is not a fossil? Because your link deals with the preservation of archeological specimens not fossils. Also, it reccomends Elmer's Glue for gluing and stabilization, which I have heard yellows as it ages. So is Elmer's glue good or bad? "There is no difference between Zen and Purgatory and Time Warner Cable, and they are trying to tach me this, but I am a dim impatient pupil." ----- xonenine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted June 11, 2010 Share Posted June 11, 2010 the tooth is a fossil. the reason i like the nautarch info is because it's good info. particularly in regards to dealing with stuff from salt water. salt is a problem. it is "hygroscopic" - it attracts moisture forever. when it dries it recrystallizes and "wedges" things and over time it can cause flaking, delamination, and general mischief in a lot of material. so i believe in getting as much of it *out* of the fossil as possible. "elmers" is a proprietary formula, so i'm not positive what all's in it. i do know that a polyvinyl acetate emulsion in water is what i prefer to use on wet specimens that i don't want to dry due to their fragility. on specimens i can dry, i have a tendency to use pva dissolved in acetone, or "vinac" as it is known to many. this was recommended to me by a museum curator. i would use butvar if i didn't use vinac. reversibility is important to me. consolidants of today may not be perfect and someone 40 years from now may wish to redo something i've done. pva and pvb are not expected to "cross-link" and molecularly bond with the fossil. cross-linking is a bad thing, because it is irreversible. since i am not a chemist, i tend to follow the advice of "experts" who are professional conservators in a university or museum environment. i have seen lots of differing advice on what to do with preserving fossils. some of it i feel certain is wrong, and some is suspect, and some i agree with. ultimately, it's your fossil, so you will do as you choose. the way i think about it is that all my stuff is only mine temporarily and i therefore semi somewhat consider myself a keeper of it until it's passed on to someone else. one of the reason that poor methods perpetuate along with better methods is that the cause-and-effect relationship of poor results is at times not recognized for many years. at any rate, you have a cool fossil. congratulations on having it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
32fordboy Posted June 11, 2010 Share Posted June 11, 2010 I don't know what everybody else uses, but I like vinac a lot. Once the fossil is dry, I heat it up with a lamp, then I soak it in the vinac until the bubbles stop. I pull the fossil out of the vinac, let it dry, then repeat until it has the slightest sheen of vinac on the exterior. Not sure about sea fossils, though. www.nicksfossils.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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