I've been looking more and more into plastinating organic specimens lately. Specifically, mushroom fruiting bodies. There isn't much in the way of resources online for the process so I've been trying to piece it together based on a few different resources. By far, the most helpful resource has been (pdf), which details the process specifically for mushroom fruiting bodies. I was looking into a similar method, except replacing the cold acetone bath dehydration method with graded ethanol dehydration - exactly the same as the dehydration method used to preserve specimens for paraffin impregnation in histology - and instead of using silicone as an impregnating agent, using epoxy resin instead.
The theoretical process:
Step 1: Freeze specimens prior to dehydration.
Step 2: Dehydrate specimens by bathing in graded concentrations of ethanol; 30%, 50%, 70%, 80%, 90%, 95%, 100%, and an additional bath in 100%, all about two hours each.
Step 3: Allow specimen to equilibrate in room-temperature bath of 100% acetone (this step I'm not too clear on, all resources I've read seem to just suggest the acetone will simply replace the ethanol after the acetone bath, but that doesn't seem quite right.)
Step 4: Gently dry and place in vacuum chamber in bath of impregnating agent (in this case resin, minus the catalyst). As the pressure in the vacuum is increased, the acetone will bubble and boil out of the specimen while the resin fills the void, literally impregnating the cells with polymer.
Step 5: After acetone is cleared out completely, wipe off excess resin, paint or spray catalyst on to impregnated specimen, and wrap in plastic wrap, adding more catalyst as needed to keep the curing process going.
Does my assessment of the process seem correct? Does it seem like a doable project? It's a very long-shot, but I'd love to be able to preserve ephemeral mushrooms permanently without the risk of degradation.