Leica Biosystems EG1160 - Manual (Page 25)

25 Leica EG1160 – Paraffin Embedding Center
8. Place the mold on the cold plate.
The wax will become entirely solid
within a short time. Finally, the par-
affin block including the specimen
can be easily removed from the
mold.
All steps should be performed with-
out delays to ensure that the wax
homogeneously solidifies in the mold
to prevent the formation of layers,
which could affect the sectioning
results.
Please note that the removable tray
where excess paraffin is drained
should be emptied at regular inter-
vals to ensure that liquid paraffin
drains easily and the removable tray
does not stick to the guides.
Caution! The tray can be hot!
Excess paraffin collected in the re-
movable tray should not be reused,
as it would be contaminated.
9. On termination of embedding, the
Leica EG 1160 should be turned off
pushing the ON/OFF button. Conden-
sation water on the cold plate should
be wiped off and liquid paraffin re-
moved from the work area with soak-
ing paper. For further information on
cleaning and maintenance, please
refer to chapter 12.
Note: The tissue embedding center
need not be turned off with the green
main switch on the back. If it is pro-
grammed to automatically turn on in
advance, it must not be switched off
with the main switch.
When the automatic turn-on feature
is not used, please make sure that
the instrument is turned on early
enough to allow the individual com-
ponents to reach the required tem-
peratures. This applies particularly
to the heater of the paraffin reser-
voir, as it can take several hours un-
til the solid wax is entirely molten.
The warmup times of the indivi–dual
components are listed in chapter 4
"Technical data". 5. Open the cassette and transfer the
sample to the mold using warm for-
ceps.
6. The mold is placed on the refrig-
eration spot for a moment. The tis-
sue is oriented with forceps as re-
quired. Within a few seconds, the
clear consistency of the wax will
change.
Small tissue specimens can be ori-
ented by slowly pushing the mold
from the embedding spot to the re-
frigeration spot. As the wax solidifies
very slowly in the transition area, the
tissue can be removed from the for-
ceps without any risk that the sample
sticks to the tip of forceps. (If the wax
becomes solid too rapidly, the for-
ceps will stick to the tissue).
Note: Please avoid a film to form on
the surface of the paraffin. This
would create two phases in the fin-
ished block which could cause fis-
sures inside as a result of which the
block could break during sectioning.
7. After orientation of the specimen,
the half filled mold is retrans–ferred
to the embedding spot. After posi-
tioning a cassette base or an embed-
ding ring, the mold is filled up with
paraffin.
When not using cassettes or embed-
ding rings, the mold should be filled
up to the top edge.
Note: Do not overfill the mold to avoid
contaminating the cassette base or
embedding ring outside as this could
result in the insufficient clamping in
the specimen holder of the micro-
tome.
11. Tissue embedding