Coverslip thickness

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Macro_Cosmos
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Re: Coverslip thickness

Post by Macro_Cosmos »

jmc wrote:
Wed Jul 28, 2021 2:05 am
A dollar each - heavenly. My fused silica ones are about 15-20GBP each depending on size. I've had to become very adept at cleaning them. Carefully. Thankfully at 0.35mm thick they are a bit more robust.
Yep... I've seen some insane costs associated with fused silica windows, quartz glass, sapphire glass... even some petri dishes for inverted systems use them, can't imagine the price!

Certainly puts that dollar to shame. :shock:

jmc
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Re: Coverslip thickness

Post by jmc »

Beatsy wrote:
Wed Jul 28, 2021 2:49 am
jmc wrote:
Wed Jul 28, 2021 2:27 am
...
Yeah, I buy 'em, but not many of 'em..... When you add on the quartz or fused silica slides it becomes rather pricey. Quartz seems to be a bit less than fused silica, but even so, it's eye-watering.
With (potential) consumables like cover slips, you certainly could rack up some serious running costs without careful cleaning and re-use.

I don't need anything exotic so I'm rather more profligate with my slips these days. I generally only re-use them within a session, not across different sessions, and that's mostly out in the field (e.g. surveying pond samples or algae scrapings before collection). Then the slips are binned - just like all my single-use ones are. I always clean slips first, even if fresh from a box of (allegedly) pre-cleaned ones, so re-use wouldn't be a problem per-se. But fresh from the box ones are usually quicker and easier to clean than used ones with dried-on goop attached.

It's just time-saving really (aka laziness) because I bought lots of large, cheap job-lots over the years and have accumulated a lifetime supply to dip into (at my current usage rates anyway).
I think I spent about 700GBP buying slides and coverslips when I started doing the UVB work. Mixture of quartz slides and quartz and fused silica coverslips in a couple of thicknesses. Fingers crossed the aim is not to break any. I have since found some cheaper slides (about 5GBP ea as opposed to 15-30GBP depending on material) so that is less of an issue, but the coverslips are still expensive.
Jonathan Crowther

dhmiller
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Re: Coverslip thickness

Post by dhmiller »

I'd like to contest the claim of "for optimum performance, always use .17mm". Always is a very strong word.

Thanks, M_C. I think the 13- 17mm variety will work best for me. I am only looking at dried chemical solutions - very thin - and prefer large ..x 60mm so I can get the most coverage over the prepared solution.

Macro_Cosmos
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Re: Coverslip thickness

Post by Macro_Cosmos »

dhmiller wrote:
Wed Jul 28, 2021 7:33 am
I'd like to contest the claim of "for optimum performance, always use .17mm". Always is a very strong word.

Thanks, M_C. I think the 13- 17mm variety will work best for me. I am only looking at dried chemical solutions - very thin - and prefer large ..x 60mm so I can get the most coverage over the prepared solution.
I personally think #1.5H is good to have a box or two lying around to supplement normal slides. If you discover a very nice procedure and produces great reproduceable results, then making the chemicals on the #1.5H slide will give just many hints more resolution!

If your 60x is an oil immersion one, it shouldn't matter too much. Look forward to the results!

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