Etching of the plastic:

Good results have been reported when doing immuno electron microscopy on Epon-Araldite embedded tissue by etching the plastic with sodium metaperiodate using the method described in "Ultrastructural Localization of Antigenic Sites on Osmium-Fixed Tissues Applying the Protein A-Gold Technique" by M. Bendayan and M. Zollinger, Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry, Vol 31:1, (101-109), 1983.