MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

Thanks, Charles. I've seen those (exceedingly nice!) videos and will be watching them again. Your written description is also helpful, and very much appreciated.

Yes, lovely! Nothing pretty as a living diatom shot...

Very nice! One thing I've been wondering is how you get diatoms to 'release' from the needle onto the storage slide. Can't be using adhesive, because then you can't get 'em back off?

Sorry to hear you got hammered by the hurricane, looks like it may be our turn now. And the shed, that sucks.

A lovely image of a lovely diatom!

PeteM, thanks ... for me it's one microscope that's as much fun to look at, as look through. Hobbyst46, great question, thanks. I thought it might be an improvement in the 'feel' of the stage, as the original one (now on the Olympus) has an exceedingly 'free and easy' feel, as though it is lubed wit...

That would never have worked for me here, it kept jamming and actually took quite a bit of effort to get it going again. A couple times I wondered if I'd ever get it apart, it was that bad. I made a spanner out of a pair picks and a small hand screw type clamp, which was a bit clumsy but certainly d...

That explains why the two holes opposite each other. Now, how to kludge up a spanner to turn that ring?

Whoops never mind I got it.

Oh really ... it just threads out? Like a big screw? As in, "rightsy tightsy, lefty loosey"?

What do I need to know in order to prevent a ball bearing stampede?

Okay, I have disassembled to the point where the basic rotating part casting has nothing attached to it anymore, except the two rings. One ring, the innermost one, is fixed to this casting; the outer ring is the one which wants to rotate, but it being prevented from doing so by some obstruction. Rem...

I have removed the brake, it isn't the problem. Dry lube is definitely not the problem -- this stage has been taken apart, cleaned, and re-lubed recently and there's ample evidence of it everywhere. The interface between the white and brass rings doesn't need any more oil, it already has too much if...

No, that's not it. In the picture below, I have removed the stage proper from its quick-release fixture -- which I should have done in the first place, my apologies, I've forgotten how all this stuff works. So ... There are now what appears to be three rings; the outer two are actually one assembly,...

Greetings all: I just obtained another Zeiss rotating stage to replace the one I stole from my WL stand to graft onto my Olympus BHS BH-2. I didn't get an exact replacement, however; the 'new' one came from a 'Photomic', I am told. The problem is I cannot figure out how to get this one free to rotat...

Nice girdle views! I believe the 'small triangular diatom' is of the genus Limorpha.

Doron & Bob: Although definitely a Pleurax fan, I'm not attempting to use it for this purpose. I have export version Naphrax from Brunel UK and Toluene for this work. However ... forum member keithstout and I have been discussing possibilities of modifying the Pleurax curing progression, and he is c...

Greetings, all: One of the things I have been dabbling around with off and on for the past few years is becoming proficient at micromanipulating diatoms, for the purpose of making strews that are free of detritus, creating type slides, and possibly arranged slides. A few days ago I was practicing mo...

Good heavens, I'm wincing just looking at that thing! But I have to agree with PeteM: "Bonus points for making the most of the experience. Awesome image."

carlh6902 wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 26, 2020 5:52 am

Glad to see somebody finds this useful! I haven't written much lately, but have made a few poor-quality BH2 videos for YouTube.

Links to the Youtube videos, please?

Yes indeed, Carl H is a real asset to our community - cheers, sir! And thanks for posting this, Glen.

Bob, that's definitely one of the benefits: I can't stand to see a slide box laying on the bench because of what happened to my Kemp test plate, and promptly put them back up before long which really helps keep the place tidy. Hi Kurt, good idea to bring this up! I store my slides this way but haven...

Every once in a while I like to nag everyone to pay attention to how they store their slide collection, to never leave slides in a vertical orientation as with slide boxes laid on a shelf. This is because it just isn't safe to assume the mountant in your prepared slides is solid, and all your precio...

I would think that different species will have different mechanical strength. I agree absolutely, Charles. I've studied the Cylindrotheca genus of diatoms in part because they're so lightly silicified that most cleaning processes, even the gentler ones, dissolve them utterly and leave no trace! Eve...

Here's a three part set of Youtube videos where some nice Japanese people give us an introduction to diatoms: What they are, how to collect them, cleaning, making slides, and observing. While I wouldn't quite say these vids are the last word on the subject, they're what got me started creating my ow...

Yes, that's right, and useful for still other things having nothing to do with DIC or POL. I have never understood why rotating stages are so rare, but with DIC in particular it's a major mystery. I mean, it's practically a necessity, but expense can't be the reason ... not when you're talking DIC...

Thank you all for the nice comments! (Rod - good to see you!) Glen, thanks for asking -- it really is a fun part of this nutty business and I need to remember to photograph my collecting locations. So here are a few pix, and although they're a 'blast from the past', it's where the Caloneis lewisii i...

Am I missing a part here?

Looks like you're missing the bottom half. Here's how mine looked. Only the flat part with the four screw holes got JB Welded.

what is the reason you like the rotating stage so much? Orienting the object to DIC prisms or to the camera? Yes, I want to be able to orient any specimen to best advantage under the DIC shear plane, and consider it a terrible handicap to lack the option. I often wonder why so many DIC scopes lack ...

Looking back over this post, I can see where the pix alone make the machining setup look funky. But tell you what, if you had been there observing in person, I'm sure you'd have agreed it was perfectly okay. Also, a master machinist and owner of the shop I did the work in looked it over before I sta...

Now that I'm back home after almost 5 months on the road, I'm having a bit of fun in the lab and thought I'd share a few results.

The WL is sitting on the sidelines, all complete and ready to go. I had a standard Zeiss X-Y stage for it stashed away, which I installed after making off with the rotating stage. But it is missing its 63x/1.4 planapo, which I had to 'borrow' for the BH-2 also. But that got replaced too, with the 10...

How did you mount the stage? I'm a little abashed to admit that it's glued on with JB Weld, but hey, whatever works, and it looks better than duct tape! But there's a little more to it; the swap began by removing the Olympus stage from its dovetail, and setting the dismembered Zeiss stage upon said...