Stability of waterlogged wood treated with PEG

Donny L. Hamilton <dlhamilton [at] tamu__edu> write

>To some degree I have to agree that throwing my PEG related
>questions out to the DistList for discussion may well be "an
>exercise in frustration", for that has been the nature of many
>similar discussion.  There is a reluctance on the part of many
>conservators to admit that PEG has some inherent problems.

This is in reply to Mr. Hamilton's comments on PEG.  While my
experience with PEG is stretched over many years and I have not
concentrated any research efforts on alternatives, I had a student
last year who had an archaeological wood conservation problem she
wished to address.  In the process of developing her research
project I noted that Morgos and Imazu ("A conservation method for
waterlogged wood using a sucrose-mannitol mixture", Preprints, ICOM
1993:266-272) spoke clearly about the many short-comings PEG can
have in the desired treatment outcome.  Having over-looked these
points, and since I am focused on long-term durability of
treatments, I urged the student to undertake a re-study of their
results but she regarded that as "re-inventing the wheel" and since
she was in another Department's grad program I had, alas, no
influence.  I direct you to Morgos and Imazu's bibliography,
however, which with their work does show that people do take this as
a serious problem.

Niccolo Caldararo, Ph. D.
Departments of Anthropology and California Studies
San Francisco State University


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 14:16
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                       Message Id: cdl-14-16-007
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