Trimming & Attachment to Woody Blocks (Hasumi)

Trimming & Attachment to Woody Blocks

After embedding a dehydrated tissue in paraffin (Paraplast: Sherwood Medical Co., St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.), it should be trimmed to some extent with a one-tailed stainless steel blade. This paraffin block should be attached to a woody block with a spatula and tweezers heated by a Bunsen burner. To help attach, all woody blocks should have been soaked primarily into melted paraffin. The paraffin block attached to the woody block should be further trimmed in parallel, immediately before sectioning with a rotary microtome.