Hot Waxing: Bringing back the Shine

Most of the time in conservation, our goal is to retard the aging process and protect objects so that the knowledge of our cultural heritage can be passed down for many generations. Today was a bit different, because our goal was not just to stop the spread of corrosion, but we got to make a dull and dirty metal object all shiny again. I realized that sometimes it just feels good to make something sparkle again. So today for those objects that its okay to make shiny, I got to learn how to conserve metal objects using the hot waxing technique. Normally, conservators would use either oil or cold wax, or an acrylic coating/lacquer like Paraloid or Incralac. However, it seems that hot waxing is also another technique to use to coat metal. Not only does it give a good protective surface, but it also doesn’t leave behind brush marks, like lacquer can.

The objects that we tested this new technique on were two swords that can be found in the Stafford-shire Hoard Gallery at the museum. These two replicas Saxon swords are on display so that you can lift and feel how heavy they actually were. Because they can be handled,  you might gather that they can get pretty grimy and corroded, and you would be correct. As a result of this handling, they periodically come of display for a few hours so that they can be polished and re-coated. One reason we were the ones in charge of doing this today was so that we could get instruction from Pieta in the hot waxing technique and practice for use on future objects. As these are replicas and not authentic Saxon swords, they made great practice material.

The first step to hot waxing is cleaning the surface of corrosion and oil products. This was done using fine steel wool and a polishing compound known as Autosol, a polish that is made to remove corrosion, stains, etc, from metal surfaces.

These products, and a lot of elbow grease were enough to give the swords a nice shine.

Next, the swords and the wax used (micro-crystalline wax) were heated with a hairdryer (or heat gun, depending on what is handy) until the metal surface was hot to the touch and the wax was beginning to get very soft.

 

Using a brush, the wax was then brushed in a thin smooth layer over the hot surface, ensuring that you keep the surface hot till after that wax is on. Both sides were completed, the back done carefully to ensure that the front wax wasn’t rubbed off, then left to cool for a few minutes until the wax began to turn white.

After the wax is harder, but not too hard (when the metal surface is warm to the touch, but not hot), it was time to buff off the wax with yet more arm strength and a cotton cloth. And if you thought polishing was hard, getting the surface layer of wax off was even more difficult. But after we finished, the metal surface was again nice and shiny and well protected.

Hot waxing protects objects so well in fact, that when three gun locks were found and compared after exposed to salt water from the flooding that happened in Louisiana from Hurricane Katrina, the lock that was hot waxed had almost no visible corrosion. In comparison, the oiled and cold waxed objects had quite a bit of corrosion to the surface. If you would like to read about this and see the vast difference in protection from the three different techniques, you can find the article, entitled Preserving Your Antique
Arms Collection by David Arnold, at this website: https://www.thegca.org/pdfs/Preserving.pdf .

Conservation: A Lifetime of Research

One thing that I never fully understood about conservation until I finally entered my master’s program at Cardiff University was that I was committing myself to a lifetime of research. When thinking about conservation through rose colored glasses, it seems all glitz and glam, revitalizing an object for a purpose. However much that is true, it takes a lifetime commitment to understand materials for conservation as well as the materials of the objects themselves in order to do that. I was working on a fine example of one such object, a reproduction pot used in the education department for the children to be able to handle and touch. This object had fallen off of the cart that it was being transported on and shattered. Since I have worked on pottery before I knew some about the material itself. What I didn’t know was the kind of material used to piece it back together and infill the missing pieces that couldn’t be put back in.

 

This is how I received the pot, partially finished bys previous conservator. In a bunch of shards from large to tiny, though mostly tiny as you can see. So with a little bit of the knowledge I had from my previous work on porcelain, I discussed a few options of adhesives with Ciaran, and decided upon using 20% w/v Paraloid B72 in Acetone. This is theoretically a very good adhesive and has a lifespan of over 100 years. So I pieced the puzzle that was the pot back together and got as far as I could. As this was a reproduction and not a real artifact, I had a good reason not to try for days even weeks trying to get every little piece back together. If this had been an original artifact worth a lot to the art and historical world, I would have spent however long it took to try and get every piece back together. As it was, I stopped when no pieces would fit together (and I tried a lot).

 

The result was a mostly complete pot with most of the loss pieces from the point of impact. Now for the hard part, I had no idea what to use for a fill, as I have not had the chance before to work on a broken object before. So consulted Ciaran and Pieta Greaves (the head conservator in charge of the Staffordshire Hoard) and they gave me a list of a few options that I could use. And since I didn’t know the properties of the materials, I decided it was time to test them on a scrap piece of wood and wax in order to decide which was the best filler to use. The options were Plaster of Paris, Flugger (pronounced floo-ger), and two different conentrations (20% and 30%) of Paraloid B72 mixed with glass microballoons. So I set up the wood and looked at certain qualities, such as viscosity (how runny it was), work time (how long before it hardens), surface finish, colour, how well it stays on a slanted surface (as I would be using it on some steep slants), and how well it comes off of modelling wax (which I would be using to form a mold of the missing area). Below you can see my mould.

Here are my notes while mixing and applying the different fillers.

Plaster of Paris- work time is about 15 minutes before complete hardening. Plaster was a little messy, but easy to mix (adding plaster powder to water till the water absorbs most of the powder, but leaves a bit at the top dry, then only mixing once till it is smooth, then stopping to limit the amount of bubbles). The resulting paste is smooth, a light tan colour. with lower viscosity (meaning it doesn’t run, rather it sticks and stays in place), and it can stand for a few minutes to thicken more if need be. This allows a good work-ability on an angle. Upon drying, small bubbles can be seen on the surface. Comes of nicely from wax.

Flugger- work time is about 45 minutes before it gets too hard to handle and get a nice finish, Takes over an hour to dry. Comes straight from a tube, a nice thick white paste that doesn’t move once applied. Works well at an angle, retains its shape over time, and has a nice smooth finish. Cracked when pulling from wax (though it could just be because it was a thin layer, thicker would have come off nicely.

20% B72/microballoons- work time is about 5 minutes before it is too hard to handle and get a smooth finish. Needed to use quite a bit of microballoons to get thick paste. seems to finish nicely, but it runs slightly on a slope before it hardens. Became brittle, and crumbled when trying to remove from the wax.

30% B72- work time was about 15 minuts, but it takes about an hour to fully set. Runny in the beginning and I had to add a lot of microballoons to work into a paste. Most likely has to set a bit before using. Too runny for a slanted surface. Upon drying, lots of small bubbles came to the surface, not a good finish. Does not release from wax, too soft.

After reviewing my notes, I decided that Plaster of Paris or Flugger would be the best options. In order to decide upon these, I chose to do a solubility test to see what solvents can be used to remove either material. Plaster of Paris was found to only slightly soften with water (and therefore theoretically soften enough for an easy manual removal), whereas, Flugger was soluble in both industrial methylated spirits (IMS) and acetone, and only partially soluble in water.

So after learning all of this from my little research project, I chose Flugger as the filler of choice.

So then I proceeded with my treatment of filling the missing areas. And here are a few pictures to show the results so far. 

The wax was used to form the Flugger into the shape of the pot. I first formed the wax over the rim on the opposite side to get a mould of the original shape. Then I moved it and placed it around the missing areas. After, I then proceeded to fill in teh missing areas, that were visible, both inside and out. Since it made a little bit of a mess, I simply used acetone to clean up the edges.

Though this looks good in this picture, the fills still need a little bit of work in order to make them smooth with the exterior and interior surfaces, in some cases, more filler added, and in others, sanding down.

So as I have quickly learned, there is always research to be done, because there is constant innovation in conservation practice.

From the Museum Gallery Floor to Storage: What Really Happens to an Object Part 2

My last post last week was about following some items after they have been taken down from display form the gallery floor. You got to see a sample of one of our condition reports, and got to see some packaging. Well this will just be a quick post following up on that, showing how we packaged the suit of armour. As you might have guessed, it was a bit of a challenge making sure we were packaging it so that it would reduce, as much as possible, the stress on the metal and fragile textile. So here are a few pictures showing you step by step how the armour was packaged.

 

Here are the pieces of the suit of armour…

 

 

And here are the boxes being packed, layer by layer, 10 items packed away into 3 boxes. Now to ensure that the objects are protected, it is important to pad the box on all sides first. These flat white pads are simply bubble wrap wrapped in acid-free tissue. Acid-free because acidity can be the cause of some very serious problems, and the bubble wrap for cushioning.

For objects like the sleeves, it is important to protect the fragile fabric that has already started to tear. Before they are placed in the box, the sleeves were stuffed with a few of the pads rolled up in order to keep the fabric from creasing and ultimately causing unnecessary fibre breakage. Now to ensure the protection from exterior risks, after being placed in the box each sleeve was padded on the outside with acid-free tissue puffs (simply balled up tissue we cleverly refer to as puffs). After the sleeves, the next layer was the shoulder guards, then came the apron that protects the upper thighs and sits beneath the cuirass (body suit).

For the shoulder guards, they are curved so it was important to support and pad beneath them and around them before the final layer was placed on top. The apron was a bit trickier to figure out how to pack, as laying it flat was impossible because it was bigger than the box. So our solution was to fold the apron in half, and pad it in the middle to prevent creasing, then lay it flat in the box, as seen above. With this, the box was full, so a final layer of pads were placed on top, and the box was closed up and labeled right away, to ensure there was a record of what objects were in which box.

In the meantime, Ciaran had packed one of the other boxes with the Helmet, the face mask and shin guards. Below, you can see the layers of the box and how they were placed. The helmet was padded both inside and around the outside, as was the face mask. The shin guards were placed flat one on top of the other, padded in between. and finished it off with puffs and a final layer of padding. The second box was complete. Nine of the ten objects were now ready to go.

Now for the cuirass. Before packaging, there was a rather lengthy debate on the best way to transport the cuirass, on the mount, or off. After going back and forth weighing the pros and the cons, we decided off the mount, as we felt we were better able to support and prevent damage by packaging the cuirass in a box rather than having it supported on the mount. So we wrapped the skirt of the cuirass with tissue to prevent scratching. We also wrapped the cord on the back to prevent  it catching on anything during packaging and unpacking after it arrives at the MCC.

Next we carefully maneuvered the armour, face down in the box (so no excess pressure was placed on the cord), completely padded on the inside and around, and the skirt precisely placed with padding between each piece of the skirt. After this stressful movement, we padded the remaining space with puffs and placed a final layer of pads. It was then closed it up and labeled.

With this, the suit of armour is safely stored for transport awaiting the transport orders. Now the next step is paperwork. After that, the boxes will be transported to the MCC and unpackaged for long term storage. Hopefully I will be able to be around to show you the final resting place for next few years for this wonderful object. Stored out of the damaging light and pollution, the work of the last few days and the work that will occur will ensure that this object will be around for many future generations to enjoy.

 

 

Monday in a Museum

You might think that a museum is quiet in the morning, especially a Monday morning. But as I found out this morning, that is not the case. The museum buzzes with activity, from front of house workers busy getting the museum ready for visitors, and cleaners ensuring a spotless museum, curators and directors making sure the collections are as they are supposed to be, to technicians working on their long ‘to do’ lists ensuring that the museum is safe for the visitors, staff and objects. For the conservation department, the day started off right as I walked in the door. The goal was to empty a gallery as safely and quickly as possible before too many visitors arrived. So we started at 9 AM to get most of the objects off the gallery floor before the museum opened at 10 AM. The reasoning? To ensure the safety of the objects, of course. Since the cases are unlocked and open to public prying hands, the changing of a display case during operating hours is a risk for objects to be stolen or bumped and damaged. Especially since the objects we were dealing with were small, delicate, carved, ivory pieces.

Now as most people know, this year is the 100th Anniversary to the start of World War 1. In order to commemorate this, people across the world are focusing time and energy on making sure the story is told. Journalists interviewing soldiers, historians publishing books and articles, and museums displaying WWI memorabilia. The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery has decided that one of the galleries collections will be completely taken down and in order to entirely dedicate it to their collection of artefacts. And in order for this to happen, it was lour job to ensure the secure removal and transport of the objects in the gallery to the conservation lab for condition reporting and packaging for storage. So that is what we did. Dismantled the cases, checking off the objects in the case with the list of objects supposed to be on display to ensure everything is there, then placing them safely wrapped in acid free tissue in a big basket, then safely taken back behind scenes to the lab. This may  not sound too difficult or exciting, but I can assure you that it was both challenging and exciting. Below is an image of one of the five display cases that was emptied in the gallery. And the other image below is the table in the conservation lab with all the objects taken down from the gallery.

 

Now the challenging part was the large amount of objects taken down, and there are still more to be removed, including one samurai suit of armour, as well as a miniature version of one, and a collection of Japanese paintings hanging on the wall in between the display cases. The objects removed today were the small easy to handle objects, whereas Wednesday we will be tackling the more cumbersome pieces that are going to take some time to remove from the display mounts and cases. The exciting bit was getting to handle objects that were so delicately and intricately carved, really just beautiful pieces of a very talented hand. Below are images of just a few of the objects that I condition checked.

A Tiger and Her Cub (carved in ivory)

 

A Monkey in a Chestnut (wood with inlayed ivory teeth)

Two Frogs and Two Snakes on a Human Skull (carved in ivory, Sorry for the poor picture quality)

A Group of Frogs (carved in ivory with metal inlay eyes), cracked in a circle on one end resulting from the growth pattern of the ivory.

 

A Poetess in Her Old Age (carved in wood)

Now the thing to remember is that these objects are all from the 19th century or older, intricately hand carved and all less than 5 cm in length at there longest measurement. You can imagine the skill and time that has gong into these, and these are just a few of the pieces I handled today. Well, more objects to assess tomorrow, so more, better quality pictures to follow of this beautiful ivory and wood carved collection then. Ta!

Condition Checking Two 19th Century Tapestries

Today was a very interesting day. Our goal for the morning was to check the condition of two 19th century tapestries that will be loaned out to two different museums. The museum documentation that needs to be completed for this to occur is extensive, and one of the documents is a condition report. This records the extent of damage to an object before it goes on loan, that way it can be compared with the condition upon its return. If there is extensive damage as a result of the care of the other museums during the loan, they will be charged for any conservation work needed. So getting this document as accurate as possible is extremely important.

Here is a little history behind these tapestries. The group of four tapestries that are in the museum collection are part of an six tapestry collection depicted with scenes of different parts of the Arthurian legend depicting the story of quest for the Holy Grail. Three complete sets were finished by Morris and Co. in the last 20 years of the Nineteenth Century. Over the years they have been dispersed, four (a variety of the different sets) are housed at the museum, some in the collection of Andrew Lloyd Webber, and there is even one depiction of The Attainment by guitarist Jimmy Paige.  The scenes that I got to see today were the The Summons (of the Knights of the Round Table) and The Attainment of the Holy Grail. 

Now as you may or may not have guessed, working with a tapestry is not easy, simply due to its size. These were obviously not small (as you can see below), as they were meant to be hung on a wall.

Here are some pictures to show what were up against and a few pictures of the progress of the condition checking. Let’s just say that the condition check took a while…

 

After we got everything finished, it only took till lunch time, we were even able to do a few more things. One was looking at all the suits of armour in the collection (totalling 5, besides the ones on display and in the lab) to decide another one to put on display. Also, we are trying to decide a better way of storing them, as they are not stored appropriately. So debate and research will be ongoing for a few days to decide. In the meantime, we are sewing Tyvek drapes to cover them to protect them in the lab and in storage from dirt. Well, who knew I would be sewing… Good thing they just have to work and not look pretty, since sewing is definitely not my strong suit. Anything is possible in conservation!!

Till tomorrow.

Real Life in the Role as a Conservator

 

So as I had determined yesterday, today was a day of wonders. I figured I would just be finishing up work on the Japanese armour, but its seems that was not to be the case. So I will take you through my day with pictures, as I am sure you have guessed, I love taking pictures, especially about things related to conservation!

My first task of the day, before I could even get settled into cleaning the armour, was to take a walk to the museum transit store ( the area in the museum where all objects in transit between locations are stored, eg. store-display, display-photography, museum-MCC…). There It was my job to help Ciaran transport some of the collection from the store to one of the galleries to be put on display. in the image above, you can see the display case open and empty spaces about to be filled with small objects in the right of the case.

 

Another image of installing some objects into the gallery showcases. You will notice that Ciaran is wearing a very bright green apron. These we have to wear as conservators at all times while working within the museum. This is so that visitors to the museums know that we are professionals and have the qualifications to handle objects, and so they can come up and ask us questions if they so desire.

 

After finishing as we were already out on the gallery floor, the next thing we did was to walk around and look at some of the display cases, whose objects (as seen above) are soon to be stored, in order to protect them from work that will be completed on them. These will be fun to handle!! But might be very difficult to manage…. Guess we will have to wait and see.

 

And of course, how is it possible for a conservator to walk around the museum without noticing something that needs to be conserved?? the answer is we can’t. Ciaran and I noticed on the walk that one of the boats on display has suffered some damage. As can be seen in the image above, the boat is most likely a bitumen and clay mixture, and as a result has deformed, most likely as a result of too high of temperature and humidity. In order to protect the object, we discussed the possibility of a support that will have to be made to retain the shape the boat has left by supporting the entire bottom and sides to prevent further movement. Hopefully, we will be able to make it happen, but for that to happen we must clear it through the proper hierarchy in the museum. But even if they decide nothing needs to be done, it is always good to know which objects to keep our eye on during impromptu gallery walk-throughs just in case it does become more damaged.

After finishing up our walk back to the lab, I finally got to sit down and start cleaning the helmet of the green suit of armour. Now, if you remember correctly, there was a paper tag found on the inside of the face mask from the same suit. One was also found on the inside of this helmet during my cleaning. These two pieces, as well as the two sleeves of the suit, all had a tag with the same two Japanese characters on it. So this weekend I actually had a friend of mine Channy, who can translate Japanese, tell me what they said. The result is that this armour has been tagged as Tsukamoto, a family surname. With a little bit of research today, we were able to discover that that is the surname of a prominent Samurai soldier family as well. Could it possibly be the family suit of armour?? We hope to find out soon.

However, right in the middle of all of this exciting discovery, there was an interruption…

Above, you see a shipment of materials that are new to the museum and will soon be utilized on the collection. As the museum had never used the materials before, we had a little talk demonstration by the workers at Toorak on the properties and how best to use the material to suit our needs. In a nutshell, these materials are from the Toorak corporation who deal in materials that prohibit the corrosion of metal by the inclusion of copper flakes in the plastic packing material. With this material, you are able to place inside of it any metal that has a risk of corrosion and protect it. The concept is that the plastic, in particular the copper inclusions, reacts with any pollutants in the air that is trying to pass through and corrodes itself, before it can reach the metal object inside. This keeps the object from tarnishing and corroding. Too good to be true?? Sounds like it, but maybe dreams do come true. More details will sure to be following on this very interesting material.

Finally for the rest of the afternoon, granted there was not much left before quitting time, I got to finish up a few pieces of the armour. One of them not ending very well. That happens to be the armour below. I was surface cleaning the front of this body suit, while Ciaran was cleaning the back. Having tested a solution of 50% water:50% industrial methylated spirits (IMS), we proceeded. But halfway through with cleaning the front I had a tragedy happen, a conservators worst nightmare… Blooming of the painted surface, which is a white blooming formation that appears after a wet solvent surface cleaning in which the solvent due to its evaporative properties reacts in some way with the surface that causes it to turn a cloudy white (as can see below on the bottom right over the ribs). So, we ended with simply dry surface cleaning the remainder with brushes and an air puffer. Thankfully, it had already been decided that this armour was not going to be put on display, but rather conserved then returned to the MCC for storage. Another suit of armour will be brought to display if need be. The metal armour will be going on display next week.

 

 

Well, I hope you enjoyed a walk in my shoes as a conservator. It definitely never gets boring. Tomorrow I will be back at the MCC finishing up with the XRF. So hopefully I find something rather interesting. Till then!!

Project: Analysis of the Herbarium Collection for Mercury Part 2

Today was another long day using the XRF on the Herbarium collection. Here are a few pictures to show what I am up against with this project.

As you can see, there is a lot of work that has been done and hopefully will be finished by Wednesday. Today after a full days work, on top of the work done on Thursday, we have only just gotten a little over halfway done with the entire collection. Quite a few interesting things have popped up on the readings. Some samples have come back with a high quantity of metals, including copper, lead, and iron. These readings would be due to the inclusion of impurities in the paper during its production. Bromide was also found in a few of the samples in quite large quantities. One treatment that used to be used on collections is methyl bromide. Like mercuric chloride, it has properties that repel insects. We are now going to be looking for this in the samples along with the mercury. As some of the graphs were noisy(not very clear where the peaks were at), hopefully, after we finish the readings, we will be able to take all of our findings back to the lab at the Museum and run the readings through another program that will quantify the readings. In other words, give a numerical value to the height of the peaks in order to determine if there really is mercury in the samples. Tomorrow, I will be back in the lab! What I will be working on is a mystery, as this job keeps changing and new things are always popping up. Well stay tuned tomorrow to see what I end up doing!!

Project: Analysis of the Herbarium Collection for Mercury

Today was a very interesting day. It started out as another day to spend on the pewter collection. However, we finished within a few hours of starting and had enough time to begin and make a large dent in working on my second project for the next few days. The herbarium collection is the collection of plants and plant material. Pre-70s, collectors and conservators alike tried to save all their collections from one of the most damaging hazards to a collection…pests and insects.  Their answer was to soak the paper sheets that the collections were mounted on in mercuric chloride. Since the discovery that mercury is harmful, massive survey of collections have been ongoing to ensure that all objects owned by museums are safe to be around both for museum workers and visitors.

So what I have been working on all day is using the XRF to analyze the paper mounts in the collection for traces of mercury. My goal is to check two boxes from every shelf, and two samples from those boxes. Sadly I forgot my camera today so pictures will be coming soon. Then you will understand the massive project this really is!

Well more information and pictures to come tomorrow. Till then!!

Project: Survey of the Alloy Pattern of the Pewter Collection

When I first heard about this project, I was unsure of what to make of it. Up until a few days ago, I did not fully understand the true value behind pewter. From general research and talking about the collection with Deborah and Jane (who works in the Care of Collections sector of conservation), I have learned quite a few interesting facts about pewter and about the collection itself.

Here is the background information on the collection from the curator Martin Ellis. The collection has come mainly form one man by the name of Lloyd Ward. Upon his death, the collection was bequeathed in its entirety to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 1956. Nothing further is known about the collection prior to this time. This bequest, apparently came as a surprise to the Pewter Society, a collector’s society that keeps tabs on pewter around the globe, including embodying the specialist pewter knowledge in the UK. As a result they took it upon themselves to come and see the collection and survey it for fakes, ultimately marking those they thought fake by painting a large letter ‘F’ or scratching the word ‘Fake’ into very conspicuous areas on the object. For the current museum staff, there is a desire to analyse the collection to expand the knowledge of it, in order to understand why the ‘Fake’ objects were marked as such, and to put in place a plan for analysis to implement after the initial sample analysis.

For Pewter itself, it has been around since at least the 14th century. There are different qualities and different alloy compositions used, including fine pewter (tin with a small amount of copper), and a lesser quality made of lead and tin (in the middle ages a ratio of 112:26 tin:lead). By the time the seventeenth century came around, pewter was very common in the domestic setting, from the poor to the rich. After this time period, the pewter trade could no longer be controlled, though attempts were still made. In the eighteenth century, the legal standards were said to have been:

Fine metal- containing 95% tin: 5% antimony

Trifling metal- containing lead additive

Ley or Lay metal- containing even more lead additive.

However, not a lot of concrete percentages can be made into these standards as every pewterer had a different recipe. The true standard was the weight of the object. Each object had a standard weight to match. The ware in question was weighed against the standard, and if it was the same weight or lighter, it passed. The lighter the object the purer and higher quality the pewter, as it contained more tin and less antimony and lead additive.

This knowledge along with a few other various percentage ratios of alloy compositions will be used in conjunction with the results of the XRF analysis.

Today, a large dent was made in sampling the collection of marked fakes and supposed authentic pewter. As of right now, it is difficult to tell if there is a pattern in the different alloy compositions, but there have been some. For the most part, there are high lead objects (mostly marked fakes, but a few authentic ones that have been tested) and high tin objects (mostly the authentic, but one or two that have been marked). After calibration and new software has been applied to the data, they will be compared and a hypothesis will be made.

For now, I believe I will end this discussion, as there is still much more to learn. Here are a few pictures taken of the sampling procedure and a closer view of the objects being sampled.

Sampling procedure: The first image is me getting the sample and equipment ready. And the second is me during the 30 second sampling window while the XRF is running (I am following health and safety procedure using a radiation detector to test for any scatter and be able to reduce it if it is too high by stepping farther back).

The following images are all images taken during the sampling. You will notice different objects, as well as the same object sampled in different areas. The Red “F’s” are clearly visible, and you may even be able to see some of the scratching on the bottom. (FYI: These are not in any particular order)

 

 

 

 

 

Sources:

Peal, C.A.1997. Let’s Collect British Pewter. Norwich: Jarrold Colour Publications.

Masse, H.J.L.J. 1971. The Pewter Collection. London: Barrie & Jenkins.

 

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery Conservation Work Placement

As some may know for any conservation degree, one must go on a placement in order to get a little bit of work experience before getting thrown into the workforce. For me, my placement is at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. So for the duration of my placement, I have permission from the conservation coordinator Deborah Cane to take pictures and write about what I am working on and doing as a conservator. For now, here are a few pictures taken over the last few days to show how they just threw me into work (which is fantastic and not a complaint!!).

This would happen to be my very nice workspace when I am not running about the museum galleries, travelling to the objects store, the MCC, or at the work table working on objects. As some may have guessed, I am not sitting here a lot.

These are images of a project I will be working on, determining fakes in the pewter collection. The first image is the collection of pewter in the MCC. The second is a portable X-ray Fluoresce (XRF) set up in order to analyze the elemental composition of the pewter. And the final image is the entire set up being worked on by Deborah.

Two sets of Japanese armour suits that are being conserved for display.

 

My work set up for surface cleaning the inside of one of the masks. It had a mustache on the front, so I had to be very careful not to put any pressure on it while cleaning.

These are the before images of the second mask that I surface cleaned today. Notice the dirt and rust and the cracking in the enamel paint layer on the inside.

This is an after image showing the surface free from dust.

 

More information and pictures of the pewter project will come tomorrow! Till then, Cheerio!