Apropos cleaning shells of glue, tape etc.: a product I have used with considerable success and so far no apparent side-effects is Alconox. This is a very powerful detergent that we use mainly for cleaning laboratory glassware. It is sold in powder form, and I usually keep a tub of solution in a sink somewhere so I can chuck any stray tubes or bottles in there. If you soak them long enough, Alconox gets through or behind any tape - dried-on insulating tape, hardened masking tape and even fossilized medical tape - and it eventually slips off. The secret is the very slippery composition of the detergent, which insinuates itself into gaps and soaks through just about anything even nominally porous.
So: I tried it on a filthy 100-year-old Busycon specimen that bore a thick covering of soot and some old tape and label residues. A one-hour soak followed by light brushing with a toothbrush and you'd have thought it was live-taken yesterday. Obviously some heavy rinsing was necessary to make sure all the detergent had been carried off, but the results were spectacular. Weak solutions of Alconox are also great for washing cars, incidentally.

PC.

Paul Callomon
Collections Manager
Malacology, Invertebrate Paleontology and General Invertebrates
Department of Malacology
Academy of Natural Sciences
1900 Parkway, Philadelphia PA 19103-1195, USA
Tel 215-405-5096
Fax 215-299-1170
Secretary, American Malacological Society
On the web at www.malacological.org

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