Jodie's Lab Time Jan 4th-20th 2017

Jodie's Lab Time Jan 4th-20th 2017

Today was my most challenging day so far. While working to uncover the two pieces much of it fell apart. While this is often inevitable, it is still nerve wrecking for me. Rick teased me about breaking his dinosaur. I have put small pieces back in place before this but this was my first time recreating bone out of a jumble of parts.

As I was cleaning away the matrix around the edges I realized that I had several other pieces of bone that were nesting next to the large vertebrae I had been working on. One will eventually be connected to the bottom of the vertebrae, although it has been displaced and is currently not in the correct position. The other is a piece of the adjacent vertebrae.

I now had to clean at least a portion of these two pieces before I could vinac the piece I had finished. Being proactive now would save me extra work in the future when trying to clean those pieces after applying vinac. I will admit I was a bit impatient at first but as soon as I started on those pieces it was hard to stop and go back to my original project.

The next step was to remove more matrix around the edges so that I could put a final layer of vinac over the entire surface to protect it while we continue to work on other parts of the jacket. This was satisfying work because it went fairly quickly and did not require the same extreme attention to detail. 

I am getting more confident in knowing what is just matrix and what may have fossil in it. 

So I am able to remove matrix much quicker and more efficiently.

The tip of this one broke off when I started removing matrix and I had to glue it back on.