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Techniques for CollectorsRE: Permanently labelling specimens

20th Jul 2015 01:02 UTCKyle Beucke 🌟

Greetings,

What are some popular ways to permanently (water and alcohol resistence is a must) label rock and mineral specimens? Most of my material is matrix-rich, and I want to associate certain data (mainly collecting site and chemical analysis data) with particular specimens, permanently. A lot of my material, at the present, is marked up with sharpies and in ziploc bags with paper labels, but this is risky. Is some kind of enamel paint and ink used? Or a transparent laquer of some kind painted over a small paper label, over the rock?

Thanks for the input,

Kyle

20th Jul 2015 01:22 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

What I have done and seems to work well is to printing a label on paper with a printer in a small font. I then soaking the label in white glue so it is soft and pliable and then glue it to the sample. When it has dry put several coats of clear acrylic laquer over it to make it waterproof.

21st Jul 2015 21:02 UTCKyle Beucke 🌟

Thanks Reiner. This sounds like a good method. It will allow me to include more information (compared to hand-writing).

Kyle

21st Jul 2015 21:17 UTCHolger Hartmaier 🌟

My printer is an HP Photosmart C6280 which uses water-soluble inks. The ink runs as soon as it comes in contact with white glue. I think Epson carries printer ink that is permanent. Has anyone had experience with Epson printers or any other printer that uses permanent inks? Any suggestions are welcome. I was considering going back to archival paper and India ink if nothing else worked.

Thanks,

Holger

22nd Jul 2015 01:58 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

I use a laser printer which does not have that problem.

22nd Jul 2015 02:29 UTCHolger Hartmaier 🌟

Thanks Reiner- I forgot about that option.

22nd Jul 2015 15:40 UTCMark Heintzelman 🌟 Expert

It's not just a solubility issue, the ink jet use dyes which will fade in time, unlike the permanent pigments used in the toner which Laser printers employ. I still have some original samples from our studios first HP 300dpi Laser printer (circa 1985), which are about 30 years old now. They still exhibit no sign of fading or affect of age even today (not much time, granted, but about as old as Laser Printers were more widely used commercially).

I have a few decent albeit basic reference specimens with original labels in my own collection that are now approaching their second century, something we should all probably consider as a possibility. ;)

MRH

8th Sep 2015 21:18 UTCPaul Stephen Cyr

Another old fashioned method is to use a bit of white out, label catalog number and other essential data and then coat with clear nail polish. This is quite water resistant from my experience, even holding up after a bit of chemical soaking. However, I would take the extra incentive to make the printed labels for a project like this.

8th Sep 2015 21:36 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

I use the same method as Reiner, except I write the label by hand instead of printer. First tried using an extra fine ballpoint pen, but the ink runs in the organic solvent of the lacquer, so now I use an old fashioned sharpened pencil, the graphite leads of which don't dissolve in anything.

12th Apr 2016 14:06 UTCNicholas Schaffer

Paul,

When you say 'white out', do you mean standard correction fluid?

Does anyone else use any other type of fluid such as enamel paint?

Thanks,

NS

12th Apr 2016 15:51 UTCMark Heintzelman 🌟 Expert

I have any number of 100+ year old specimens where the painted labels for the specimen numbers, even with hard gloss oil enamel, had since crazed and began flaking off. I certainly wouldn't trust the poor binder in Correction fluid to withstand the test of time.

I still feel properly sealed fibrous paper would give the longest lifespan. In mine, I use an acid free clay-coat stock. Clay-coat is very stable and gives a nice smooth surface perfect for writing with a micro-fine india ink marker (pigment not dye), and the lacquer coat further helps bind the clay/fibers together. Like Alfredo, I still write mine by hand . . . for now. I actually do them very small, under a stereoscope, but as these hands get older and older and eventually too unsteady, I may have to go the way of the laser-printer (still a perfectly good option, a pigment not a dye).

MRH

12th Apr 2016 16:35 UTCSusan Robinson

No one has mentioned that putting a paper label of any kind on specimens that are sulfides presents the problem of what to do to permanently block the label from the surface of the mineral. I've seen many pyrite specimens that have "eaten up" a paper label over time, so that it is nearly impossible to determine its catalog number, even using a microscope.

One thing that may help is to keep sulfide specimens dry and away from humid conditions. A small, white area can first be painted on the mineral specimen (prior to paying on a label), with gesso, which contains calcium carbonate, and will help to neutralize any acid that may form by oxidation of the pyrite. The catalog number can either be written on the gesso surface with India ink or affixed on a small piece of acid-free paper with Elmer's glue. After the India ink or Elmer's glue has dried, coat the number with a thin layer of nail polish (collodion), which will water-proof the number, should you want to wash the mineral specimen sometime later. These are standard museum practices, but the only way to completely avoid this problem with sulfides is to isolate those minerals from oxygen, which is needed for the oxidation process to occur. Oxidation of marcasite is one prime example of what happens to a sulfide over time, if not properly cared for.

For those interested in this problem, go to the internet and google: "pyrite disease".

12th Apr 2016 19:13 UTCKelly Nash 🌟 Expert

I have not used it myself, but there is Tyvek (HDPE) printing paper available now. It is very flexible, chemically neutral, and lasts virtually forever.

13th Apr 2016 01:11 UTCDana Morong

I had some outdoors specimens (large) which needed labeling which would be water-resistant. One big chunk I had used a Sharpie pen on, but that faded after a while (even being on the bottom, shaded, side). So I got some old gray enamel paint (because I didn't have white), painted a patch on, let dry, then with a cheap thin artist's brush, and India Ink, lettered the label and let that dry. For many of them I later covered with clear spray-on (I masked other areas, as well as myself, both eyeglasses and mouth and nose). A few of the specimen are of a material and color that needs no enamel patch first, just inking on with India ink, but these were only certain ones. Also, if a surface is too vitreous, it won't take ink well. The best ones to take ink were some of the sawn bases of basalt matrix - this basalt was actually a brown, otherwise the ink would not have contrasted. On the bottoms of large specimens I tried to pick spots that won't contact much - not support points - where practical to do so.

13th Apr 2016 08:58 UTCMark Heintzelman 🌟 Expert

Susan brings up an issue that, while vexing, I would think that maintaining humidity control would be the more pressing issue of the two, were it high enough for white glue or any other hydroscopic binder to absorb enough moisture to cause a damaging reaction. Sulfide do have their own issue, admittedly.

Gesso, if you choose to go that route, can employ many different binders and the best archival ones are the ones you mix yourself, Rabbit skin glue which is the strongest, and fish glue which is the most flexible, but both of these are hydroscopic as well. Only acrylic binder, the gesso you find "ready mixed" in art stores, dries to a non-absorbent state which would be more applicable for use on sulfides if humidity were a concern, but it's also the weakest binder and as a plastic, of the least archival quality, not to mention more prone to delamination over time than the other binders, especially on hydroscopic and non-porous surfaces.

Tyvek is amazing stuff! I remember being impressed with the strength of the first document envelope I ever encountered that made of the material, but it is polyethylene, also a plastic which has limited archival quality compared to natural material/fibers. Now deep into the "age of plastic", issues over plastics natural inclination to degrade over time has become a serious concern for archivists. Studies of accelerated aging in Weathering Tester (QUV) and weatherometer (WOM) chambers, polyethylene exhibited notable modifications in nanomechanical properties correlated with the corresponding chemical processes due to aging, as measured through the carbonyl index profile obtained from ATR–FTIR. In the aging process, polar groups in the polyethylene are generated, as well as chain scission and cross-linking. As net effects of these processes respective increases in crystallinity, density and hardness and surface cracking results. ("The effect of accelerated aging on the surface mechanical properties of polyethylene": Departamento de Quı́mica, Universidade Federal do Paraná UFPR, Brazil, October 2002).

This may all seem a bit "over the top" admittedly, but I have a fine arts degree, an understandable interest archival quality materials, and a penchant for historic mineral specimens as well. It is sad to see what time has done to some of these venerable old tags and labels, so I take that into account and try to be better informed and to use the best reasonable options available to avoid the same.

13th Apr 2016 11:25 UTCKeith Compton 🌟 Manager

Hi

There is no singular correct method of cataloguing or labelling but to see what is available you only need to use Google to search for something like "museum geological cataloguing methods".

You will then find innumerable different methods, many outline the benefits (pros and cons) of particular methods.

There are also several previous messages in Mindat on labelling techniques.

Cheers

Keith

18th Apr 2016 16:14 UTCBochao Liu

As can be seen in the attatchment, we can put the lable on the seat. And it will solve these two problems permanently at the same time.

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