Dear Jonathan,

your request hardly can be answered positively. Due to the fact that I always wanted to own a vibratome (or ) in my lab for spec.prep., I have some information in my files concerning vibratome technique & dealers.

While such vibratomes were purchased in the 80ies & 90ies via EM-supplying companies like EbTEC, KRAMER Scientific Comp, PELCO, Ted PELLA, POLYSCIENCES, and perhaps others (DISCLAIMER: no affiliation to these companies, no financial interest), the production and/or selling those machines must have ended in the 1990ies.. The last “blinking” I found was a company named TECHNICAL PRODUCTs INTERNATIONAL (TPI)…

At least in product-information-service in 2013 a last time was advertised. If clicking there for their company website, it will link to

[ http://www.techprodint.com/ ] which is completely in Japanese (at least when I go there) and for me personally makes no sense at all (change of domain to another company?).

Then there I found a webpage: (http://www.microscopy.info/Organization/Details/955  =website IMC Services 2013, Copyright © 2013 IMC Services,   [email protected] 978-456-3100 ) where the address and communication data were:

[< Technical Products International, Inc. TPI >, manufactuer Vibratome® tissue sectioning systems, microforge, and micromanipulator ]  Contact: Tollfree: 800-729-4421; Phone: 314- 522-8671; 5918 Evergreen; St. Louis, MO 63134; United States, but

clicking to the hidden “Homepage LINK“ :  initiates display of:  http://www.leicabiosystems.com/research/neuroscience/  !

So it might be that rights and technical knowledge were transferred to LEICA (perhaps you can request info from a LEICA representative in US and they would be able to point you to repair service for your Lancer vibratome, usually there might be "old" service engineers or service reps out there).

At https://physics.ucsd.edu/neurophysics/Manuals/tpi/Vibratome1000.pdf  I found a manual / [referring also to: The Vibratome Company, 5918 Evergreen St. Louis, MO 63134 USA as above,  + email - [email protected], the latter I did not try to get into contact, because it might be a frustrane trial), which might be intersting to you too.

This is what I can tell so far…  apologize for longness as well as for the fact that with this information I can not improve the of your Lancer vibratome … but perhaps you might have a clue where to turn your view.

Best of luck and wishes, Wolfgang

Wolfgang,

Thank you for your extensive reply.  I've been in touch with folks at Leica and while they don't provide repair services they've given me contact info for individuals who used to work on these machines.  We'll see, fingers crossed.

You're welcome, dear Jonathan.

Usually these"individuals" work fine!

Best of luck, Wolfgang