Hi all,
I have a question here:
I have some terribly radioactive material from the Chernobyl accident. It is a silicate melt that formed from the molten core and structural materials from the building. To do a thin section of this stuff would be absolutely mega cool.
As you can imagine I have to do that in a glove box to protect myself. There is no automatic thin section machine in that glove box. What I do have in the GB is a low speed diamond saw to section the sample.
How can I make a thin section with the least possible equipment? Like, manually, by hand? I think that should be possible. I can introduce certain things into that glovebox (which are contaminated and lost then) so I want to minimize waste, cost, and so on.
Is there a howto out there on how to do this? A good book?
I have never prepared a thin section myself, only polished mounts. So I am familiar with gluing, polishing discs etc, but this would be quite special.
Is it enough to just cut a slice of the material (parallel surfaces) glue it onto a glass slide and then polish it down on polishing paper until it allows light to pass? How would I control the thickness? I have no transmitted light microscope in that box I am afraid. Is there something that I could embed along with the slice that would give me a thickness indication by its color in transmitted light, when checking with a magnifying glass or so?
Thanks for any ideas!
Cheers
Philipp