Microscope slide preparation service
Geology Hub offer a professional thin-section preparation service for individuals and institutions. Turnaround time for samples is on average two weeks but this will be confirmed prior to confirming the order.
Thin-sections and any off-cuts will be returned by courier. Payment will be required prior to despatch.
£30 per thin-section, discount available for bulk orders.
A thin-section preparation facility requires diamond bladed saws, a hot plate, a petrological microscope, sheets of plate glass, other various consumables and over 40 years experience are all that is necessary to prepare geological microscope slides.
Rock samples are sliced using a diamond edge saw and then trimmed to section sized block on a trim saw. These blocks are flattened and saw marks removed using a carborundum grits on plate glass with water. Flattened blocks are mounted using a heat cured epoxy resin onto a standard glass microscope slides.
The bulk of the block is then cut down to 2 mm thickness, before grinding down to standard 30 microns thickness, using successively finer carborundum grits (90-320-600-800 grades). Once the correct thickness of obtained, the section is cleaned and cover with protective glass slip using natural Canada Balsam.