Quake Wax

Kathy Hall inquired about holding a Sevres vase to a marble desk top
with a product sold as "Quake Wax".  That particular brand may no
longer be available, since as has been reported on this list,
Conservation Materials, Ltd., who packaged and sold it, is no longer
in business.  If anyone else on the list knows something to the
contrary, I'm sure that they'll inform us.

As is often the case with inquiries of this kind on the list, some
of the context of the problem is not supplied, making it difficult
to give a full answer.  In giving a technically correct answer, it
might not be the best advice given the total context.

In this case, is the marble desk top in use by someone as an office
desk?  Is it a static display inside a glass room/case?  Would the
wax be the only source of stability for what one can assume to be a
valuable and breakable object (I'm not familiar with the term
"Sevres vase")?

Quake wax is soft microcrystalline wax.  I have used Victory White
Wax in the same manner to hold small objects to non-porous
substrates and to secure parts of objects where soldering or other
adhesive methods were not necessary.  You might also want to try
Multiwax X-145A which has a lower melting point than the Victory, or
even a blend of the two.

Paul S. Storch
Objects Conservator
John and Martha Daniels Objects Conservation Laboratory (JMD-OCL)
B-109.1, Minnesota History Center
345 Kellogg Blvd West
St. Paul, MN  55102-1906
612-297-5774
Fax: 612-297-2967

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 11:26
                Distributed: Tuesday, September 16, 1997
                       Message Id: cdl-11-26-003
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