gallusrostromegalus:

botanyshitposts:

*adds ‘plant press’ to the list of scientific tools i want in my home*

You can make one, for like… $20 worth of stuff from a hardware store! (less if you have a habitat for humanity or other recycling place you can get to)

You will need:

• 2 quadrangles of plywood (or singe-piece if you want to be extra fancy) in the size you want, as long as they’re the same size and shape
• two hunks of the thickest felt you can get, slightly bigger than your quadrangles (it will gradually shrink as it presses the water out of plants, so you want to leave selvage)
• 4 bigass bolts. You know, the ones almost as long as your forearm? those.  If your quadrangles are very large or significant’y longer than wide, you may wish to get extra bolts
• corresponding number of appropriately sized wing nuts for your bolts.  you *can* do this with regular nuts, but they’re a pain to work with.
• drill to make holes in your plywood. Go ahead and borrow this from a neighbor, you’ll only need it for like five minutes.
• some sandpaper
• baking supplies, if you are Not Good With Tools

HOW TO THING:

1. Sand your quadrangles so you don’t end up with a fucktillion splinters every time you use it.  if you want to be SUPER fancy, you can stain it too.
2. Drill appropriate-sized holes at least 1 inch in from the edge on each corner of your quadrangles, so that you can fit your bolts through easily*.  If you are dealing with a large or oblong set of quadrangles, add additional holes so that they are approximately evenly space, with no more than 12 inches between them.

   *If you are Not Good With Tools like I am, make baked goods for Your Neighbor Who Is Good With Tools and ask nicely for them to do if for you. 99% of the time, they’re thrilled to be helpful.

3. Thread bolts through holes.  Thread wingnuts onto bolts
4.  cut notches into the corners of your felt so that it can rest between the bolts. DO NOT attach felt to quadrangles- you’re going to need to replace it eventually, and the pressue of the press will keep them in place JUST FINE.  place notched felt squares between quadrangles like the chocolate in a really weird s’more.

You are almost ready to press!  Some more notes:

• Fuck blotting paper.  newspaper works FINE.
• Once you have selected a specimen you wish to press, lay 5 or six sheets of paper over your felt on both sides, and arrange your specimen in the shape you want it before pressing.
• Unless you’re doing seaweed or something REALLY fleshy, in which case, more like 12-20 sheets.  Just stick the whole sports section in there.
• TO PRESS: one you specimen is arranged between newspaper, tighten wing-nuts until press is snug, then gradually tighten a bit more over the next few days as specimen dries out.  Your pressing times will vary greatly based on local humidity and how fleshy your specimen is.
• Once your specimen is ready VERY CAREFULLY remove from newspaper and mount on nice paper.  Frame, if you want to look REALLY cool.
• If you want to press more than one thing at a time: GO FOR IT.  That’s why we got the REALLY LONG bolts- just add more newspaper between your specimens and you can have STACKS of them- great fore field trips.

YAY!  You now have a hella fly plant press with works way better than those fancy ones and you’ll also look super-handy and badass in front of the other botanists.