Expanding Skills: Learning Three New Treatment Methods and Materials

One of the best things about being a conservator is learning new treatment methods and materials. This allows you to expand your knowledge and develop preferences. During my time as a Lennox Intern, I have had the chance to broaden my skills by learning three new treatment methods.

The first new treatment I learned is the re-adhering of flaking emulsion on glass plate negatives. Working with a small brush and in small increments, I brushed a 5% solution of gelatin in deionized water on the glass, and then gently pressed the emulsion to the glass. In theory, this is a fairly straightforward treatment. In practice, it proved to be difficult. The emulsion is highly reactive to moisture. Thus, when coming in contact with the gelatin adhesive, it behaved erratically. It was difficult to re-adhere the pieces of emulsion seamlessly, resulting in space between two pieces of emulsion. The end results are not perfect visually, but the emulsion is now adhered well to the glass, reducing any risks of losing any delaminated pieces.

A section of emulsion before and after re-adhesion.

Brushing on the gelatin solution.

The second new treatment I learned is the re-building of board corners, a technique often done on books which have corners that have snapped off. Some of the photographs in the Van Zandt collection (read my previous post on this collection here) are adhered to backing boards. This was typically done at the photography studio, and all of the backing boards have inscriptions. This means that removing the board would remove historic information, and as a result, repair of the boards with snapped corners was our chosen treatment method. Melissa taught me two ways of building up boards: (1) delaminating layers of archival board until it is the right thickness; and (2) adhering archival board and paper together to build up the right thickness. Then, the newly-made board corners are split and pared, the object’s backing board is split, and they are fit together. I found this to be a fun process, and enjoyed learning a bit about book conservation techniques.

A board edge made of archival board being fitted into the backing board of a photograph.

The final new treatment method I will discuss is the use of TekWipe during the washing of a panoramic photograph, which had a significant tideline. I thought this would be a great opportunity to test out a new-to-me material, using the open blotter sandwich method. My set up for this open sandwich was, starting from the bottom: a sheet of Mylar, blotter, wet TekWipe, the object (recto-side up), Photo-Tex tissue, and Plexi. This method meant that the soluble degradation materials would move downward into the absorbent TekWipe. In the end, only a small amount of discoloration moved into the TekWipe, which did not result in much of a visual change in the object, but I did appreciate the opportunity to work with this material.

The panoramic photograph removed from the TekWipe, which shows some discoloration that has leeched out of the photograph.

The opportunity to try out new techniques is incredibly valuable, and I am excited for future learning possibilities as my time at ISU comes to an end and I move on to the next position. If you’d like to keep up to date with my future conservation endeavors, please feel free to follow me on Twitter or have a look at my blog.