Hi,
I attach a picture of the way I keep my samples - in components drawers from the hardware store. The drawers are easy to label and the mounts, numbers engraved on the back, are sorted by project. This is about 15% of the collection. The ledgers contain the documentation for the samples; the collection goes back to the mid-70s and so these records are in manuscript. Sample storage cabinets with nice trays and desiccants can be very good but a) they take up lot of space and b) for this number of samples are prohibitively expensive. Both these are real obstacles for someone working at home.
A couple more comments from the archaeometallurgy world on this thread. The world's oldest metallographic samples, those of Henry Clifton Sorby, from the 1860s are preserved at Sheffield University in the UK. Some years ago they were published in
Historical Metallurgy.(Edyvean, R.G.J, and Hammond, C., 1997: "The metallurgical work of Henry Clifton Sorby and an annotated catalogue of his extant metallographic samples",
Historical Metallurgy, 31(2), 34-85). I115 samples are preserved and many are still useable (it was decided not to reprepare them0. Almost all date to 1863-5, and are of irons and steels, so you can leave even those that long.
On fractography, nature is sometimes kind to you. In eastern England in about 1100 BC a bronze Age metal workshop closed down. All the metal on hand was collected up, including the floor sweepings, and put in a very large pot, sealed, and buried in a silted up ditch, and there it remained until hit by a plough in 1959. It would appear that the bulk of the 8000 fragments had been sitting in stagnant air for over 3000 years, and the surface corrosion is about 750nm of tin dioxide. This means that some basic fractography is very possible, so we can tell how these objects were broken up. It is an amazing resource on how metalworking was done at the time..
In summary then, yes we need to take some care of our samples but not as much as the equipment manufacturers try and tell us.
Regards,
Peter
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Peter Northover
Retired
University of Oxford
+44 1865 820543
peter.northover@retired.ox.ac.uk------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 03-01-2021 10:41
From: Ken Kirby
Subject: Archiving Metallographic samples
Yes, there are storage cabinets for mounts available from companies that sell metallographic equipment.
Personally, after having them in a smaller cabinet for a year, I put them in large plastic bags. It is probably not ideal, but for my purposes, I would normally repolish the sample if I need to look at it after its been in storage for a long period of time.
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Ken Kirby
Snap-on, Inc.
Kenosha WI
(262) 748-3836
Original Message:
Sent: 02-26-2021 08:46
From: Neda Mandkarian
Subject: Archiving Metallographic samples
Good morning ASM team,
I am looking for the best practices for long term archiving of metallographic samples. This only includes the mounted samples.
I would appreciate it if you share the procedures that you are following in your lab and I'm wondering if there are any storages designed for this purpose in the market.
Thanks everyone in advance!
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Neda Mandkarian
Metallurgist
McLAren Engineering
Livonia MI
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