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Another Mounting Pedestal - Porcupine Quill
You are here: MineralCollecting.org >> Posted Articles >> Article 26

By Jack Nelson, Poolesville, Maryland, (301) 972-8504.
E-mail: nelsonja@erols.com
From the Mineral Mite, Newsletter of The Micromineralogists of the
National Capital Area, Washington, D. C March, 1996

ANOTHER MOUNTING PEDESTAL - PORCUPINE QUILL.

Although there are many common procedures used in micromounting, we all have our own favorite special techniques and paraphernalia for doing what we all like to do best. Though our goal is to achieve having a specimen mounted in a way that is esthetic and pleasing to look at, there are as many ways to arrive at that end as there are micromounters.

My first introduction to the fascinating "whole other world" we see under our microscopes came while visiting friends in Rockville, Maryland in 1988 who were avid rockhounds and who had several microscopes. After viewing some of their specimens under their scopes, I realized this is what I wanted to do and learn more about. I promptly bought my first microscope for $295.00 from Edmunds Scientific - inexpensive to be sure, but enough to get me started. After a few years of saving specimens (for later study& possible mounting), I joined MNCA and attended most meetings for about two years before attempting my first mountings in 1994. For those first efforts I used plastic hair brush bristles on the usual cork pedestals. Does that sound familiar?

At that stage in early 1994 I had accumulated a lot of interesting material from my gold panning here in Montgomery County. So my first mounts tended to be lovely crystals of garnet, magnetite, rutile, zircon and diopside among others which I mounted on these black brush bristles and even a few cactus needles club members gave me.

About a year and a half ago, I found a patch of porcupine fur from my long-ago fly tying days. While examining a few of the quills under my scope, I noticed they had an extremely fine point -at both ends, surprisingly - white at the attachment end and dark brown at the barbed end. When cut, I noticed they were filled with a spongy substance resembling styrofoam which gave them a good stiffness and body. Since most of the micros I wished to mount were about 1 millimeter or less (down to even less than ¼ millimeter) these quills offered an ideal mounting medium. Either the white (attachment) end or the brown (barbed) end can be cut to give just the right diameter fiat surface for attaching your specimen. These quills do not take a good black coating from a black magic marker, so I'm still experimenting with ways to dye them black.

To provide a safe and sturdy working platform to position and hold your specimen under your microscope, you can use a common plastic 35 millimeter film cannister. Most have a small concave casting depression at the center of the exterior of the bottom. With the lid firmly in place, place the cannister upside down on a marble-sized chunk of mineral tack centered on the microscope base and in the center of the field of view and press into place. Focus your scope onto the casting depression and you can now place your specimen in the little depression. You may use fine-pointed forceps or a pin or needle to place the specimen so that the area selected for attachment is facing up. Next, having prepared the cork and quill pedestal in advance, place a small droplet of Elmer's glue (or whatever your favorite mounting adhesive is) on a fiat piece of glass or plastic surface. Take the fiat end of the push button of a ball pen (or similar tool) and flatten the drop of glue to make it a very thin layer. Flattening the glue droplet prevents an excessive amount of the glue from being picked up by the pedestal and being drawn along the pedestal sides by capillary action which thereby diminishes the amount of glue left available on the end of the pedestal for contact with the specimen. Dip the quill tip in the flattened glue droplet and then, while looking through your scope at the specimen, touch the fresh glue to the right spot on the specimen and hold in place a moment while blowing very lightly across the working area to hasten setting of the glue. As soon as the glue has partially set, the specimen can be picked up by the quill then quickly remove the cannister from the base with your free hand and set aside. Now, under the scope, the specimen can gently be nudged to the desired position by manipulation of the pedestal and specimen against a fingertip. After a few more seconds of blowing gently the pedestal can be glued into a prepared and lined micromount box. Sometimes it may be desirable to reinforce the glue contact between the specimen and the quill before placing in the box. This can easily be done under the scope with a fine tipped needle or pin dipped in a fresh droplet of glue.

This particular method has worked nicely for me and I recommend it for smaller specimens of a few millimeters or less and especially for the very small ones of ½ millimeter or less. I welcome comments from anyone who reads this and can only hope that everyone who tries this method has half the fun of learning and doing that I have had. By the way, I believe that porcupine quills might be obtained from any fly tying shop or a supplier of fly tying supplies.

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