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Post by thepinmaker on May 21, 2021 0:32:07 GMT -8
I answered the questionnaire. Thanks. Thanks for sending the questionnaire we will try to send samples size 3 38 mm 0.50 mm in black, now is the size that we are planning to produce Josep M The Pin Maker
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Post by wollastoni on May 21, 2021 0:52:12 GMT -8
Let me remind our members than stainless steel is a MUST HAVE for any insect collection. Black enameled pins will rust one day (after 20, 50 or 100 years depending of the humidity rate of your country) and it will be a nightmare for your collection.
If you want your collection to end in a museum or in the hand of a younger entomologist, use stainless steel pins !
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Post by thepinmaker on May 21, 2021 1:00:45 GMT -8
Thanks Josep. I think most people prefer stainless steel pins. I would not like the flat head pins. But also, I don't like when the head falls off the round pin. Not sure about others, but I have about 300 size 00 pins for setting specimens. Most of what I use- many a year- are size 3. I'm guessing many other people also use this size most often. Chuck Thanks chuck, i understand that people prefer stainless steel, for his corrosion resistance capability, the downsize is the hardness, this is the reason that we are going to develope stainless steel spring wire, that is harder than the actual stainless steel wire in the market. Why you think that you shoud not like the flat head pins ? Thanks for sharing the size 3 of the pins that you are using for setting specimens, after the research, we can share the results with all of you , so maybe could be interesting to see if there are different choices or not, depending of the country, and the entomology community Josep M The Pin Maker
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Post by thepinmaker on May 21, 2021 1:18:34 GMT -8
Man I wish I could catch enough large specimens to mostly use size 3 pins. I do catch some, but most often I catch smaller specimens that require size 000-2. I guess I also prefer the black pins (no lost pin heads and less issue of spinning specimens in my experience). I'm glad that they're taking a survey so that they can collect data from a lot of individuals rather than relying on generalizations. I understand that the size of the specimen could be related with the size of the pin commonly used, in fact this the reason that we are doing this survey, for us is an enigma to know what pins are used for setting specimens, it does not exist a handbook, for that, and also will depen of the experience of the entomologist., to choose one or another, maybe each entomologist has different tricks to use one or another. We would like to learn about the specimen pinning before we develope the complete range of insect pins, well i have been reading books the last months, about this, although the best knowledge is the experience of the users. Thanks for your help Josep M The Pin Maker
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Post by richardshelton on May 21, 2021 6:02:57 GMT -8
Let me remind our members than stainless steel is a MUST HAVE for any insect collection. Black enameled pins will rust one day (after 20, 50 or 100 years depending of the humidity rate of your country) and it will be a nightmare for your collection. If you want your collection to end in a museum or in the hand of a younger entomologist, use stainless steel pins ! This is not a problem at all in my case Olivier I use cards and archivial glue for all my holotypes and paratypes....just common specimens are pinned. And all the fornitures (I do not use entomological boxes but customized display tables) are strictly checked about light, humidity and heat with museum standards (thanks to literature produced by many museums). By the way I would be interested in understand better if some scientific studies have been made about entomological pins more than just curatorial routine and rust. I mean...in literature we can see papers about many matters not exactly on entomology (for example some researchers published a paper about Lego and specimen-bearing). What about pins? What should be interesting? About processing of these materials or what?
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Post by richardshelton on May 21, 2021 6:16:10 GMT -8
Thanks Josep. I think most people prefer stainless steel pins. I would not like the flat head pins. But also, I don't like when the head falls off the round pin. Not sure about others, but I have about 300 size 00 pins for setting specimens. Most of what I use- many a year- are size 3. I'm guessing many other people also use this size most often. Chuck Thanks chuck, i understand that people prefer stainless steel, for his corrosion resistance capability, the downsize is the hardness, this is the reason that we are going to develope stainless steel spring wire, that is harder than the actual stainless steel wire in the market. Why you think that you shoud not like the flat head pins ? Thanks for sharing the size 3 of the pins that you are using for setting specimens, after the research, we can share the results with all of you , so maybe could be interesting to see if there are different choices or not, depending of the country, and the entomology community Josep M The Pin Maker Hi Josep, are you interested in publish your results about the research? I know that this could be something like advertising and would be better to identify a neutral author for it but as publisher of a new academic, scientific and international journal ( www.holotipus.it/) I am interested in understand better your efforts. Please get in touch with me at actionklavier@gmail.com. Thank you! Matteo
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Post by jshuey on May 21, 2021 6:20:25 GMT -8
Let me remind our members than stainless steel is a MUST HAVE for any insect collection. Black enameled pins will rust one day (after 20, 50 or 100 years depending of the humidity rate of your country) and it will be a nightmare for your collection. If you want your collection to end in a museum or in the hand of a younger entomologist, use stainless steel pins ! This is not a problem at all in my case Olivier I use cards and archivial glue for all my holotypes and paratypes....just common specimens are pinned. And all the fornitures (I do not use entomological boxes but customized display tables) are strictly checked about light, humidity and heat with museum standards (thanks to literature produced by many museums). By the way I would be interested in understand better if some scientific studies have been made about entomological pins more than just curatorial routine and rust. I mean...in literature we can see papers about many matters not exactly on entomology (for example some researchers published a paper about Lego and specimen-bearing). What about pins? What should be interesting? About processing of these materials or what? I'm not too sure I buy into the original statement either. Major collections here in the US have lots of bugs on 100 to 150+ year old crappy pins. The Holland collection at the Carnegie comes to mind - and the Schaus collection at the Smithsonian. It's all about humidity and nowadays, the pinning substrate. Cork was always problematic for crappy pins (hard to pin into and attracted moisture that rusted the pins). New plastic foam has solved both issues. By the way, I use exclusively #2 pins for leps. It simplifies life in general, and now with foam pinning substrates, a #2 pin is plenty strong. And with care, I can get the pin into even the smallest of hairstreaks and blues. John
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Post by thepinmaker on May 21, 2021 9:04:36 GMT -8
Let me remind our members than stainless steel is a MUST HAVE for any insect collection. Black enameled pins will rust one day (after 20, 50 or 100 years depending of the humidity rate of your country) and it will be a nightmare for your collection. If you want your collection to end in a museum or in the hand of a younger entomologist, use stainless steel pins ! The resistance corrosion of any straight pin, will depen of wire used and the finish process that they will get. If someone wants to test this resistance corrosion, on pins, or another products, to compare them is used the salt spray test , Salt spray testing is an accelerated corrosion test that produces a corrosive attack to coated samples in order to evaluate (mostly comparatively) the suitability of the coating for use as a protective finish. The appearance of corrosion products (rust or other oxides) is evaluated after a pre-determined period of time. Test duration depends on the corrosion resistance of the coating; generally, the more corrosion resistant the coating is, the longer the period of testing before the appearance of corrosion or rust. This resistance corrosion in stainless steel wire, is totally different from stainless steel wire types 201,202, than 304 or 316, the difference between them is the % of Ni, the most of european producers we are using the high quality stainless steel wire, 304, or 316, although the best way to check if your pins have been made with a good stainless steel wire, you can put them in a glass with water and salt, and pin some pins on a piece of fabric, you will find that if the stainless steel is poor, in a few days you will see corrosion in the fabric, around the pin is pinned, if the wire is 304 or 316 you will not see the corrosion. About black pins or nickel plated pins, compared with stainless steel pins, if we speak about our pins, the salt spray test will be as follow black pins 24 hours, nickel plated 40 hours, and stainless steel 304 more than 300 hours
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Post by trehopr1 on May 21, 2021 9:06:46 GMT -8
Indeed John, an excellent and insightful statement regarding old pins and their usage in historic collections !
Actually, I was going to make mention of this but, you beat me to the punch...
Having seen and worked around the historic Hermann Strecker collection (Field Museum) for 8 years I too can say yes -- on crappy pins just like the Holland and Schaus collections.
Yet, surprisingly those old pins were surprisingly rigid and if nothing else we might only lose the TIP of the pin from time to time.
Whilst I was there the entire collection was transferred into a unit tray system for extended longevity.
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Post by thepinmaker on May 21, 2021 9:38:15 GMT -8
This is not a problem at all in my case Olivier I use cards and archivial glue for all my holotypes and paratypes....just common specimens are pinned. And all the fornitures (I do not use entomological boxes but customized display tables) are strictly checked about light, humidity and heat with museum standards (thanks to literature produced by many museums). By the way I would be interested in understand better if some scientific studies have been made about entomological pins more than just curatorial routine and rust. I mean...in literature we can see papers about many matters not exactly on entomology (for example some researchers published a paper about Lego and specimen-bearing). What about pins? What should be interesting? About processing of these materials or what? I'm not too sure I buy into the original statement either. Major collections here in the US have lots of bugs on 100 to 150+ year old crappy pins. The Holland collection at the Carnegie comes to mind - and the Schaus collection at the Smithsonian. It's all about humidity and nowadays, the pinning substrate. Cork was always problematic for crappy pins (hard to pin into and attracted moisture that rusted the pins). New plastic foam has solved both issues. By the way, I use exclusively #2 pins for leps. It simplifies life in general, and now with foam pinning substrates, a #2 pin is plenty strong. And with care, I can get the pin into even the smallest of hairstreaks and blues. John Thanks for your comments John I could be very interesting if someone finds this scientific study about entomological pins, or about straight pins, it could help to take the right decision, to use one pin or another, I m writing a book that will be called the Straight pin guide, where i m trying to explain what are the main parameters to identify any pin and what are the best pins for each apllication, dressmaking, sewing, this is another important reason that i m trying to do this small study about the entomological pins, because, i want to learn about entopins, to be able to explain the learnings in my book , the entopins will be my last chapter. Is not easy to choose the right pin, when people don't have the right knowledge about these humble products, and this is one of my goals with the book , share our knowledge to help people to learn Thanks john for sharing your choice with your size 2 pins for leps
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Post by trehopr1 on May 21, 2021 12:28:44 GMT -8
You know John I now recall that the pins which Hermann Strecker used in his collection were mostly brass.
I remember well seeing many of them with these little "curly-q" green filaments shearing off of the pins.
I'm certain that may have been in part to the humidity present in the rooms of his Reading Pennsylvania home.
He passed away in 1901 at the age of 65 so his accumulated collection was largely ammassed between the 1850s and 1900.
To be sure, the heat and humidity of summertime must have been awful during those times as there was no such thing as air conditioning.
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Post by jshuey on May 23, 2021 12:42:35 GMT -8
You know John I now recall that the pins which Hermann Strecker used in his collection were mostly brass. I remember well seeing many of them with these little "curly-q" green filaments shearing off of the pins. I'm certain that may have been in part to the humidity present in the rooms of his Reading Pennsylvania home. He passed away in 1901 at the age of 65 so his accumulated collection was largely ammassed between the 1850s and 1900. To be sure, the heat and humidity of summertime must have been awful during those times as there was no such thing as air conditioning. To be fair, many of the entomologists probably used the best pins available to them. But by our standards, they were not that great. I too have seen brass pins - and they bent really easily when pined into cork. Most of the old pins I've seen look like unpainted steel, but the wire is likewise very flimsy and bends. And then, there are the pinned collections that are still in cork. Some of the pins are rusted at the tip inside the cork, and so you have to use pinning forceps to pry them out. But once you move the bugs to foam pinning substrates - all is well with the world! John
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Post by thepinmaker on May 24, 2021 7:28:06 GMT -8
About brass pins,
Is impossible to get the strenght that you need with thin diameters on brass wire, with stainless steel or high carbon steel, wire you can get from 1300 N / mm2 to 2000 N /mm2, and in brass only you can get 1100 N /mm2, .is a big difference.
The brass pins without any plating coating, they don't have corrosion resistance, and with a nickel plated coating they have higher corrosion resistance than the black although far away from stainless steel 304 or 316, is totally normal that the brass pins inside the cork are totally affected by the corrosion, another parameters, that affect the corrosion, is the humidity, the temperature and the sweat fingers of the user, that some people in specific places close to the ocean and in summer time are wetty, i don't know if everybody works in gloves for your applications, , this is what is happening when they use pins in another applications.
About producing brass pins
The pin machines are happier to work with wires softs than hards, the tooling last longer and the machines don't need too many maintenance jobs,,producing brass pins is easier than working stainless steel or stailess steel spring wire
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Post by thepinmaker on May 27, 2021 1:48:29 GMT -8
My son nows lives in Belgium, and last week end visited the city of Leuven, that has maybe the biggest sculpture about specimen pinning, maybe everybody knows this sculpture, i wanted to share with you www.amazingbelgium.be/2016/11/the-giant-jewel-beetle-of-leuven.htmlNOTHING IN A QUAINT OLD town of Leuven really prepares you for a sight of a giant shiny green beetle impaled on a 75-feet high needle. ( 23 meters) The name of the sculpture is ‘totem’ and is a work by Belgian artist Jan Fabre, who also covered a ceiling of the Belgian Royal Palace in bugs. This very unusual sculpture decorates the square in front of the historic KU Leuven University Libraries. Its appearance becomes much less bizarre if you know the artist’s intention. The sculpture was erected in 2004 to commemorate the 575 years of the university KU Leuven. A library is a collection of knowledge, carefully handpicked, cataloged, and put away for safekeeping, somewhat like a bug in an insect collection. Furthermore, the anatomy of an insect is reminiscent of a clockwork, a tiny precise mechanism, a product of science and technology. Some say the totem represents the fragility and ephemeral nature of life.
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Post by exoticimports on May 27, 2021 3:36:17 GMT -8
I’ve never even heard of that artwork. It’s awesome!
Thanks
Chuck
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