Ken Mannion
   Fossil Preparation Tools & Equipment   
         Fossil Preparation Services
            Since 1980     
Instant availability from stock........Unbeatable experience.......Unsurpassable service support & advice

 kenmannion@btinternet.com          

Our ST Fossil Preparation Pen showing

  • That all important extended point
  • Instructions for use
  • Pre fitted air connector
  • Lubrication oil in convenient dropper bottle
  • The protective sheath
As delivered in its foam lined box
  Fossil Preparation Pen. Model ST
      Pneumatic air operation   

Our ST Fossil Preparation Pen is one of our most popular pens. In its standard form, before we adapt them to a new life of fossil preparation, they are marketed as air engravers for etching/writing on hard metals.

Fossil preparation however puts unique demands on the standard engravers, making them poor performers for fossil preparation, in their standard form.

Our fossil preparation modifications (numbering over 14 in total) refines these pens into a purposely built fossil preparation pen that has a proven and undoubted superior fossil friendly performance and reliability.

Some of our modifications include

  • A longer stylus, for better viewing, and accessibility, made from a tougher material for use on rock and enabling a more acute point to be maintained without damage.
  • We tune the pen to be able to operate more smoothly over a greater and particularly lower pressure range.
  • We machine the pen bodies to take locking seals to avoid having to use tools to remove the stylus and to make removal easier.

The ST Fossil Preparation Pen is both quiet, smooth and easy to use making it an ideal first or one only pen. Its spinning tip and very high stroke rate makes it a very versatile tool. Tips last indefinitely, barring accidents, such as if dropped, when even then unlike standard engraving pens the tips can be repaired here by us for a fraction of the cost of a new stylus. It has a very low air consumption.

This specimen was acquired from an old collection by one of our most intrepid private collectors where it had lain unprepared for decades. It was preserved in an untypical matrix from an untypical locality and horizon. A very hard strongly cemented grainy matrix , quite unlike most Scottish Palaeozoic fish beds and surprisingly "sticky". It was obvious why it had remained unprepared for so long.

Our ST pen with its high stroke rate and its spinning tip allowed us to get a cleave in the rock while also enabling us to literally rub and pulverise the grains of the matrix matrix (at a micro level of course). Our long tip on our ST allowed us the space do see what we where doing. The ST was used from start to finish, no acid, airbrasive or other tools were used.

Tristichopterus alatus.  Devonian,  Scotland
Shown around actual size. Prepared from start to finish with our ST pen
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  Last revision/update 9th July 2007