Cleaning your teeth

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ReefGuy

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Scuba Instructor
Divemaster
Messages
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Location
Punta Gorda, Fl.
# of dives
500 - 999
How do you clean/polish sharks' teeth and other fossils found while diving?
 
ReefGuy once bubbled...
How do you clean/polish sharks' teeth and other fossils found while diving?
I would do it during a surface interval, and not during diving.
 
I guess I need to clarify. How do you clean sharks' teeth and other fossils from the debris they accumulate while underwater. Is there a method of polishing them?
 
ReefGuy once bubbled...
I guess I need to clarify. How do you clean sharks' teeth and other fossils from the debris they accumulate while underwater. Is there a method of polishing them?

Crest? :wink:

Ed
 
Hey Reef,

Was wondering that myself. Cindy found some sand dollars (dead) while we were down there and she bleached them to get rid of the odor and make them a bit whiter.

I don't ever remember cleaning up the teeth when I used to pick them up on the beach when I was a kid, but that doesn't mean that we did it right. We did soak the ones we came up with last Saturday (just water, no bleach) and they seem to be ok right now. There were a couple that had deposits on them, but they came of with a light scrubbing using a pot brush.

Anyone else doing anything different?
 
I use a tooth brush and Dawn dishwashing detergent on the crusty stuff.A little muriatic acid solution to clean some shells and barnacle groth off sharks teeth.Books by M.C.Thomas,Gerald R. Case,Ned Sinibaldi,Robin Brown etc.. give some excellent ideas on preservation.
 
Just soak them (shark teeth) over night in apple vinegar, not white vinegar. They will come nice and clean with a little rubbing.
I did some last year.
 
Miller:
Just soak them (shark teeth) over night in apple vinegar, not white vinegar. They will come nice and clean with a little rubbing.
I did some last year.

This is what i've heard.. I just got back from a nice dive at venice beach in florida.. found some great megaladon teeth and lots of prehistoric manatee bones and horse teeth. They retired geologist that owned the dive boat said to soak them in apple cider vinegar (NOT white vinegar or any other type.. that will change the color).
Good luck!
 
If you want to really purty up the meggies and fossil bones you can use a low RPM buffing wheel and jewelers rouge.
 
CBulla - Hey good idea! I have done the apple cider thing before but did not think of getting the dremel out to buff them! I thought dremels where just used for home gunsmithing 1911's.

ERic
 
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