Iron and steel

I am inquiring about how to preserve iron and steel. I was given a
project which is to conserve metal from a historic site so that I
might understand more about conservation. I have two pieces to
conserve.

The first piece is iron and it seems like it was a piece of a
barrel. I was going to conserve it by using the tannic acid
treatment. It was brought to my attention that it may have already
been exposed to tannic acid. Will this have an effect on the
treatment?

The second artifact is a can which I thought was tin, but my
assumptions were wrong because the can was magnetic. Now I believe
that it is steel. What other types of metal could have been used to
construct the can, and what treatments could be used to conserve the
can?

Stephanie Yasick
Student, Mercyhurst College


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 14:49
                  Distributed: Friday, March 23, 2001
                       Message Id: cdl-14-49-025
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