To eliminate sections falling off their grids, Judy Murphy has used "grid glue": Take one inch piece of double sided sticky tape and place in 20 ml. of ethylene dichloride for a few minutes until the adhesive comes off and remove the piece of tape. This solution is stored in a bottle and is good for months. The grids are cleaned in a small amount of acetone in an ultrasonic cleaner for a few minutes. Cleaned grids are dipped in the grid glue and dried prior to using them to collect sections.

JudyMurphy, San Joaquin Delfa College, Stockton, CA
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Our "grid glue" is made by using 20 ml chloroform and 1 inch of Scotch Magic tape. Grids are placed on hard surfaced filter paper (e.g., #50), face up and a drop of grid glue is place on each. They are allowed to dry before use. We do not routinely use them for sections, but they are helpful when observing ultrathin, naked carbon films for negative staining or for carbon-platinum replicas.
G. Erdos, (gwe@biotech.ufl.edu)
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Instead of using a "grid glue" try dipping pre-cleaned grids in glacial acetic acid for 30 - 60 seconds and then rinse thoroughly with double-distilled water.
Kim Riddle, Department of Biology, EM Facility
Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-3050
E-mail: riddle@bio.fsu.edu
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Our routine for grid cleaning is to dip the grid in 1 N HCl for 5 sec., rinse in water and dip for 5 sec. In 95% EtOH, blot dry and pick up the sections. We do this one at a time or in batches if we know we eill be doing a lot of sectioning on a given day.
G. Erdos, (gwe@biotech.ufl.edu).
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In addition to the sticky from cellophane tape, thick sections which are notoriously difficult to keep in place can be stuck to grids using unpolymerized epoxy resin. Dip one side of the grid to the top of a drop of epoxy, use compressed air to blow away excess resin from the open spaces, adhere the section and cure the resin in the oven.
jjerome@isnet.is.wfu.edu
Jay Jerome