Hydrophilic mountant ?

[patta]

Is there some mountant that is Hydrophilic (adhere to wet surfaces) but also Oleophobic (does not adhere to oily surfaces)? And dries/cures in some feasible way.

The application for it, is to Fill the inside of insects (cleaned with NaOH) with this resin/mountant. Only the inside is filled.
With an Oleophobic mountant, my hope is that the excess squirting out won't stick on the outside of the exoskeleton (that is waxy).
While in the inside it should adhere well, no bubbles!

I have zero experience with real mounting mediums... until now tried nail polish, epoxy glue, gelatin, all meh result.

How does work Euparal? does it stick on the outside of insect's skin?

If refractive index is around 1.45, more love and contrast for everybody.

[TonyT]

What end results are you trying to achieve? A slide mount with a coverslip or... ?
The wax layer on an insect cuticle is incredibly thin. NaOH treatment is most likely to dissolve it !

[patta]

End result would be a piece insect skin, a bit transparent, filled, mounted on a slide.
but still on its shape, no coverslip to squash it.
Large pieces, like 2-6mm. Half bee cut lengthwise for example.

Wax coating, my impression is that it is somehow still there, the skin pieces are still very hydrophobic on the outside after cleaning.

[Chas]

Not quite what you are looking for, but interesting all the same...I guess it needs pretty good dehydration....perhaps you could inject it? :
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/9410082 ... ting_top-2

[patta]

Yes inject or the like
absolutely no encasing in resin. or maybe?
Here we need the external surface free on air, while the inner gets filled with something transparent and solid
this is the struggle.
Water works but don't last, and refractive index is off.
Maybe encasing in resin + peel away the outer

Sorry I'm on holyday, once back maybe post some of the attempts

[Alexander]

How does work Euparal?

Euparal is not hydrophilic. It is just a little bit more tolerant against traces of water than other resin based mountants. Samples must be dehydrated if mounted in Euparal. The nice thing with Euparal is that air bubbles disappear during the drying.

[patta]

Maybe worth a try.How much does Euparal shrinks when dried?

[Alexander]

Maybe worth a try.How much does Euparal shrinks when dried?

I never used it on samples as thick as insects. Not sure wether it shrinks too much. Never had shrinking problems on thin samples.

You cannot mount watery samples in Euparal. Proper dehydration in isopropanol is a must and it takes many weeks to dry out.

[patta]

Ok no Euparal. I'll give a try to the LOCA glue, UV curing used to glue the screen of phones. Apparently it is water based. Cheap too. let's see.

[charlie g]

Hello, patta, and group...happy and safe new year. I came to your good thread late, very interesting thread.

Patta, please consider (low cost used book eBay purchased by me 12/21) obtaining: " Insect Microscopy", Andrew Chick, 2016. An erudite academic entomologist and long time microscope forums member, Andrew Chick has a well organized book...very useful . Chap.1:'the insects and their relatives', Chap.2: 'microscopes', Chap.3: 'equipment', Chap.4: 'media for mounting', Chap.5:' preparing insects', Chap.6: ' dissection', Chap. 7: 'compounds, chemicals, potions' Chap.8: 'slide mounting', Chap. 9: ', Chap.10...further infomation, .

Very low cost on eBay, very useful 128 page soft cover book, patta. all the best, charlie guevara

[Alexander]

Ok no Euparal. I'll give a try to the LOCA glue, UV curing used to glue the screen of phones. Apparently it is water based. Cheap too. let's see.

All UV curing glues I ever have seen were resin based. Not good for watery samples. Try some water based mountant like Magnacol or glycerin gelatin.

[patta]

" Insect Microscopy", Andrew Chick, 2016.

Great suggestion, I had the illusion to have read all Micscape UK archives.. instead, it appears I'm only at the 0.5%!
Started reading now, Chick is using as main mountant the Chick's one (obviously), AKA modified Dioni's mountant, a water-based molasse that can be concocted at home (arabic gum, lactic acid etc). That sounds good, I'll try ASAP.

All UV curing glues I ever have seen were resin based. Not good for watery samples. Try some water based mountant like Magnacol or glycerin gelatin.

That would be the dream material, water-based and UV-curing! I've read it in a website (???), but was probably too good to be true.
The fast-curing of UV resin would be ideal for my application, also due to impatience, it is not easy to wait for a couple of weeks for a proper mountant to dry.
The glycerol gelatin also sounds great, as it solidifies immediately as it cools. Let's start concentrating the broth. And looks easy to wash away.
Recipe found at: http://stainsfile.info/prepare/mountant ... elatin.htm

Up to now I've had some success with UV nail polish resin; but zero success with PVA mountant.
Below one of the few decent results
It is the head of a fly, cleaned inside and filled with UV resin , over a coverslip, from few months ago.
Defects, the inside is full of bubbles; the outside is all covered with resin or so; the resin squirts all around.
It is about 3mm wide and 1.5mm thick.

With bare water, it works better: the inside is hydrophilic and gets filled; while the outside of the insect skin is hydrophobic and remains dry, so the parts float perfectly, like in the photo. But it doesn't last That's why maybe a "hydrophilic mountant" would fit.
.

IMG_1575 (2).JPG (79.59 KiB) Viewed 3805 times

[dtsh]

Have you tried PVOH-G?
There is a pdf authored by Zander, I believe, which gives recipies for a variety of mountants; PVOH-G among them. I don't recall the ratios off the top of my head, but it's polyvinyl alcohol glue (washable clear glue) and glycerin; my experience is quite limited, but I've found it handy. I've not tried getting it to cling to *just* the inside of insects. I've also seen it referenced as PVA-G.

https://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resb ... ia2014.pdf

I had experimented with straight PVOH/PVA with some specimens, but I found it was far too easy to entrain many tiny bubbles which frustrated me, but might work for you. I've considered adding a surficant (drop of dish soap), but haven't returned to it to test. If these are purely temporary mounts, perhaps one of the glucose syrups might work? (i.e. corn syrup)

[patta]

Let's try also this Zander mixture! Or a mix of all the above, plus dish soap.
One open issue for all those water-base things is that they contain a lot of water, when they dry, should shrink significantly?