Loadingā¦
24
A museum volunteer told me my fossil prep was 'aggressive' and it made me rethink my whole approach
Two years ago I started volunteering at a small natural history museum in Flagstaff, mostly helping prep fossils dug up from a local site. I thought I was doing great work until this older volunteer named Ray watched me chip away at a trilobite for about 20 minutes and said, 'You're treating that thing like a nail and you're the hammer.' At first I got a little defensive. But then he showed me how he uses a pin vise with a 0.5mm needle and works under a magnifier, taking maybe 4 hours on a piece I would have rushed through in 45 minutes. He also said I was losing about a third of the fine shell detail because I was rushing the matrix removal. I switched to his method the next week and the difference was night and day. My prep work looks way better now and the curators actually started giving me the more fragile specimens. Anyone else here get humbled by someone with way more patience than you?
0 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In0 Comments
No comments yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this discussion.