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Techniques for CollectorsLooking for micro-vacuum hand-held device

13th Oct 2017 22:37 UTCJohn Aleinikoff

Decades ago, I used a hand-held pen-like tool for preparing pure mineral separates (i.e. removing contaminant grains from zircon grains). This tool was attached by a plastic hose to a small vacuum. The amount of suction was adjustable by a knob on the cylindrical bench-top vacuum. The hand-held tool was pen size and had a hole that could be sealed by your finger tip to activate the vacuum. There were various sizes of tips for the hand-held part, depending on the size of the grains one wished to pick. My need for this device is to remove spinel grains from garnet separates (unfortunately, these two minerals have nearly identical magnetic susceptibility on a Frantz Isodynamic Magnetic Separator, and both minerals have specific gravities of >3.3--thus both sink in Methylene Iodide). The garnet will be used for Lu-Hf geochronology, as part of a project in the Adirondacks where I am determining the ages of anorthosite emplacement in the Marcy massif. Because I must prepare at least 1 gram of pure garnet, the process of removing gangue spinel from the separate is extremely tedious and time-consuming by hand-picking. This vacuum device that I recall from decades ago would be extremely helpful in preparation of pure garnet fractions.


Has anyone used such a device and can you tell me where to purchase one? Or, does anyone have suggestions for another mineral separation technique that could separate garnet from spinel?
 
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