Tips on preparing fossil fish?

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New member
So recently my dad and I went to Wyoming and dug up some fish fossils at a quarry. We went to a rock show last week and there was a guy there preparing some fish fossils. He gave us some tips (use a hand laser engraver, scratch and blow, etc) and gave us some literal tips (like the ones you put on the end of the engraver; i don't know the real term). Nice guy. Anyway, I was just wondering if anybody has some more tips for doing this so our fish look nice when we prepare them. Thx
 
I've seen them prepared using an airbrush setup that blows out a very fine powder, basically really fine-grained sandblasting. That removed the rock over the fossil. I never had that available to me so I've prepared one with a sharp, thin needle pick. It took months though. What ever you use you have to be very careful, that carbon fossil will chip right off if you go at to hard to poke at it too deeply with a pick. Practice on a broken scrap if you have one before going after your good speciman.
 
I've seen them prepared using an airbrush setup that blows out a very fine powder, basically really fine-grained sandblasting. That removed the rock over the fossil. I never had that available to me so I've prepared one with a sharp, thin needle pick. It took months though. What ever you use you have to be very careful, that carbon fossil will chip right off if you go at to hard to poke at it too deeply with a pick. Practice on a broken scrap if you have one before going after your good speciman.
 
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