Samurai Armor

Edith McCandless <edith.mccandless.um [at] nics__gov__uk> writes

>We are currently working on a project to re-house and clean several
>suits of Japanese Samurai Armour but are having some difficulty in
>tracking down specific information.  We would be grateful to hear
>comments and ideas from anyone who has treated similar objects.

In 1995-96 we were faced with redisplaying 10 suits of armour and
improving the storage of 10 more. Due to time limitations, and its
incredible fragile condition, only one armour had a full
conservation treatment described in an article in The Conservator
1997. The remainder received limited treatment but all had
individually fitted supports. An article I wrote for the SSCR
Journal vol. 9 no. 2 tries to detail the materials used to construct
these armours. For storage the detachable areas eg. shoulder
defences, thigh defences etc. were boxed with identifying
photographs on the front. This removed stress from fragile areas
[often the laces] and protected the lacquer and fabrics from light.
Please contact me if you think I may be able to help further. Good
luck,

Alison Guppy

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 13:21
               Distributed: Thursday, September 23, 1999
                       Message Id: cdl-13-21-006
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