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Hi All and thanks Janet,

                          Now where do I start. It is difficult because my brain is so small and yet it is full of things I do with fossils, rocks and minerals. It is the wife who collects minerals and usually buys them. Being disabled does hinder me doing all I would like to do but where possible I keep my eyes open and carry some form of equipment with me.

   While walking I carry my small microscope, magnifying glass, a pen knife and scraper. Plus some bags to put in finds. I usually look for "Dirt" that may contain micro fossils of small fossils that look best when magnified. I look almost any where.

   When I go caravanning I carry the above and my field microscope. I have a small spade and plenty of boxes and bags to collect the finds (Usually dirt) in. I sort out quite a bit in the caravan so as not to have to carry to much home for processing but only what is interesting. So I end up with about 10 to 20 kilo of stuff to bring home. I rarely bring any large fossils home unless the wife sees something she like as a garden ornament. I also travel with my spotting scopes, binoculars, Telescope. These cove my other passions for bird watching and star gazing.

   At home I have my LAB which now and then (Very much not when I can get away with it) is used by my better half as a dining room. In this I have my two main microscopes plus an array of dishes, boxes and anything else that can cause my wife to go mad. Plus the computer. I have two pics of how the lab table looks at present and then you can see why my dearest keeps asking me to clean it up. I am sure I would not find a thing

MY prepping is done with water, vinegar, an array of sieves. I store my finds in small boxes or on slides.

                                                            Mike the Norman

I pass the tool kit to 2512colin

Thanks Colin,

1/ Where is/are your local collecting area/s, (Just a general area)?. and what type of rock/deposit is this?

My local collecting areas are on or near the north suffolk coast. These will be pleistocene crag deposits.

2/ Do you collect ROCKS, MINERALS and or FOSSILS?

My family collect fossils.

3/ What is your basic kit for collecting in your LOCAL hunting grounds?

Basic kit is trowel, rake, sieve, paper for wrapping a small container for sm finds and plastic bags, also a trolly with large plasic tub attatched.

4/ What do you use for Prepping your finds back home?

For deposits we bring back,  we wash using graded sieves then dry what we need in large trays in the greenhouse. once dry we use a microscope to find out macro/micro fossils.

Any large mammel bones and teeth we find we soak in cold water changing it frequently to get rid of most of the salt, we then dry it and use a thin PVA solution  (1part PVA to 10 Parts distilled water) to thoughly brush on so that it sinks right in to the bones.

Any fragile bones and teeth we do not soak. we carefully brush off any crag as the item drys slowly. if needed we sometimes use a soft brush to gently clean the item before using the PVA soloution as before. some of the bones we find are so soft that its difficult to tell which is bone and which is not. This is what we had to do with the complete lower walrus jaw we found, we didn't realise till after it had been dryed a little and cleaned that some of it was missing. Ian went back to where it was found and found the 2 missing canines.

5/ What is your favorite piece of kit?

This has got to be my microscope

6/ Do you have an unusual tool/piece of kit?

I don't know if this would be considered as unusual, but the family use a frame style fishing trolley and attatch a large container to it with elastic luggage straps. The trolly has large wide wheels which was made for beach use. This trolly is very handy for moving the foreshore material, which we take home for processing.

I  PASS THE TOOLKIT TO AMARSH