Working Conditions?

I've noticed I seem to have a lot of habits and demands of my workspace while I'm in the lab, some of which make a lot of sense, and some of which make none at all.
For one, I'm fixated on having a clean work area. I like having what tools I'm using organized, I hate it when dust piles up.
I also really hate it when the lab in general is messy, and I'll usually try to clean it before I even start working on my own project if it's at the point where it distracts.
I have a couple dental tools that I almost have to have every time I work, because they're new and wonderful and get stuff done.
Lately, whenever I work on cleaning my Green River fish, I tend to have headphones on, playing music. Oftentimes this is to counteract the sound of an air scribe or just keep me entertained during the interludes between groups of visitors who stop to ask questions (beyond an inquiry for the restrooms). I slide the headphones off whenever visitors come up to the windows, but when I've got nowhere to focus my attentions but my fish, the headphones are on and playing loudly.
I've discovered that it's way too much fun to listen to soundtrack music while cleaning my specimen, because it's very hard to not feel incredibly cool when you've got music from Inception or Lord of the Rings playing as you work away at a slab of fossilized bone and limestone under the microscope. At least it makes every little bit of dust scraped away by the dental tools actually seem significant. Everything is significant to soundtrack music.

Agwē Update #2

Hi all!

Not too much to report on Agwē (my Green River fish) this week; I've spent a large amount of time instead this week writing a "test SOP" on how to make Acryloid B-72 glue. This guide has pictures and required materials and instructions and so on, and I'm really hopeful that making these SOPs for the equipment and various procedures in the lab will be helpful for people working in Prep Lab when they need a reference for how something works or how something is done!
That's the hope, anyway. I'm optimistically looking forward to seeing how this comes together.
But in any case, that did take up a lot of time and limited my attention to Agwē. Still! I managed to unearth the first vertebrae and the surrounding area almost completely, which is really exciting! He might actually have a visible spine before the summer's out (man, I hope so)!

I've decided to proceed without using any sort of acid on the limestone-- I think I'd like to, but I just don't know how it'd work, so we'll have to see how using the dental tools works on the very hard-to-reach places along the spine and ribs.
And, I have to test out my new super, super thin Acryloid! Paleo Bond was looking too thick, so I mixed my own glue in the hopes of better preserving the detail on the bones. Fingers crossed!

~Becca

Becca here again!

Really alternatingly busy week in Prep Lab! Biggest part of my week was actually dedicated to the Scanning Electron Microscope, which was in use this past Wednesday-- not by me, obviously (wah), but by the Institute.
However! My role in the use of the SEM was purely custodial, in getting the lab ready to roll by dusting it down so the microscope didn't suffer any damage via wayward miscreant dust. I decided this merited cleaning the lab within an inch of its metaphorical life and spent a large chunk of Tuesday dusting, scrubbing, sweeping, and vacuuming. It's actually insane how much dust there was in odd places like on top of cabinets and on the sides of things like the dust collector (irony upon irony). Then again, it's amazing how much dust gets kicked up in here in one day's worth of work-- as I can see right now, two days after cleaning the lab, with it already looking as dusty as if I'd never cleaned up.
Oh well. More to clean?
So to all of you amazing volunteers who take it upon themselves to help keeping the museum looking beautiful-- you guys are totally awesome. Because it is so much work.
But I take a very weird sort of pride in making the Prep Lab look good, so then again, I suppose I don't actually mind at all.

Agwē Update #1

Becca here!
Progress this week with my fish fossil, Agwē~

Agwē as of 19 July 2012

 I've been focusing on cleaning and gluing the head especially around the jaw so far. It's the most-finished part of the fossil, so I wanted to do final touches and use the penetrant stabilizer glue (as Mike suggested) to make sure that, while I'm working on the rest of Agwē, his head stays in one nice unbroken piece.

Red circle indicates where most of my attention has been concentrated...

I'm planning on moving on to the actual vertebrae starting next week, and with luck, that'll go swimmingly (ack, fish pun). The glue seemed to work really well in holding everything together, and I think I'm getting the hang of the tools now. So progress is made! On to the spine!

I've been considering trying out diluted HCl (10%) to clear some of the limestone, but I've never tried this before. Thoughts?

Summer Volunteer Picnic at the CNC

We had our Summer Picnic last night. I think I am just recovering from the planning and celebration. I had a great time. The volunteers at the Museum and Nature Center are just great! It was fun talking with everyone. Sorry I was busy organizing things, I wasn't able to meet with everyone. I wanted your picnic to go off without a hitch. The staff at the CNC were great hosts I had a wonderful  time. Thanks to everyone; Those volunteers who were able to come, the staff who helped with food and setup, you are all great. I am so grateful I am part of your family. Sorry I was too busy to take pictures so no visuals just memories and plans for next year. Congrats to the 100 club and the KDT volunteers. Have a great summer y'all!

Introducing Agwē (also known as my fish)

Hi again! Becca here!

As requested, here's a photo of the current state of my Green River fish.
He (as I have hysterically named this thing Adalstien Hamish Agwē, because "Adalstien" means "noble rock" and "Agwē" means "demon fish" in old Norse, and Hamish is just a cool middle name [I'm not crazy, I promise!]) has had two students work on him before me, and has incomplete provenance in terms of where he's from, what he is, or what happened to his tail-- but! He's a lot of fun to work on.

Looks like he has some damage from an air abrasive tool, and the bone itself is very brittle, so I'm chipping away at the rock around very slowly, cleaning out the limestone around his vertebrae especially. I have a number of dental tools that I tend to favour. I'm also experimenting with using Paleo Bond on the weaker, cleaned areas of Agwē here, which seems to work well. But I'm hesitant to do so, simply because there's still so much to clean!

I'm open to any and all tips on how best to proceed!

Hi all! Becca from Prep Lab again~!

I've discovered in the last week that one of my favourite aspects of working in Prep Lab is when people ask questions. Specifically, when kids ask questions. More specifically, when kids ask questions and get beyond excited about the answer.

Some days it's next to impossible to get visitors at the window asking about the specimens or the equipment or the hours or anything else in the lab. Or it's impossible to hold people's interest for more than a few minutes before they're off again chasing little toddlers or simply moving on to the next exhibit.
Other days, I'm admittedly totally overwhelmed by the number of people dropping by and asking questions. And I prefer it that way (more funny stories, anyway~)!

Today, a little boy wandered up to the Prep Lab window and looked around. I said hi and pointed out some of the cool stuff in the lab-- he was particularly curious about the Apatosaurus vertebrae -- and it wasn't long before he asked the ever-popular question, "How long does it take to finish cleaning one of these fossils?"
I told him it'd taken two years to get the Apatosaurus vertebrae about halfway out of the rock so far.
His reaction?
He screamed and ran away, hopping up and down, dragging his parents over to the window from where they'd been in the next room, demanding they look at two years'  worth of work and himself completely overwhelmed at the concept that anyone could actually work on something for two years. He was very insistent that "that's crazy!" and kept asking, "How do you DO that?", meaning work for that long on anything (because he made it very clear that two years is basically an eternity).
Very slowly, is the best answer I could come up with.

I've decided I really love it when kids have questions. Adults who visit the museum are very polite and curious and ask some really brilliant questions, but kids are the only ones who will scream and run around in excitement as if your patience is superhuman.
Which, I suppose, it is. I mean, really, people work on one specimen for years? That's crazy!

~Becca

Prep Lab News

Hi all! Becca here from Prep Lab!
This has been my first week working in Prep Lab, and I love it. I've been working on finding material safety data sheets on all of the fancy chemicals here in the lab, and checking out all of the nifty things here and in the rest of the museum.

Just the other day I was issued a fossil to work on in Prep Lab. I was incredibly excited about this, since I've never gotten to work on actual prep before-- I was restricted to putting education collection labels on specimens when I was last here, which is still fun but a lot less glamourous. I'm moving up! I was one of three who went through Prep Lab orientation this time around, and we've all gotten our specimens and are joining the ranks of really dedicated people working on this stuff.
To everyone out there who has worked on prepping a specimen before--- I applaud your ridiculously amazing amount of patience. It's a ton of fun getting to actually work on a specimen so that it's finished enough to actually be put on display, be used in the collection, or even just be discernible from the rock it's in, but I keep looking at this Green River fish I've taken on after a solid three or even four hours of work to find I've barely cleared a section the size of my pinky fingernail. If that. Probably less, actually. But then again, I'm just a beginner at this and I'm incredibly timid with the hand tools. I don't even dream of trying the air scribes or the really intimidating equipment.
Still. It's actually oddly relaxing? Slowly working away at this slab of limestone and watching the little details of the fish appear. You have to be so focused on everything that before you know it a few hours have passed. Kind of awesome, right? Slow, but awesome.
So, I'll probably be here for a while chipping away at my fish, every day successfully losing track of time as I desperately try to unearth at least one more itty-bitty vertebrae before the day is out.

~Becca