Survey on lamination

    **** Moderator's comments: Please respond directly to the
    author.

The National Museum of Natural History holds 20,000 works of art on
paper within the Department of Anthropology's National
Anthropological Archives (NAA). Of these artworks, 1200 leaves were
laminated with cellulose acetate as part of a preservation approach
made popular in many conservation laboratories from the mid 1930's
onwards.

Support from the Getty Grant Program and a Save America's Treasures
grant was secured for the Artwork Preservation Project at NAA.  The
Artwork Project concerns the preservation and conservation treatment
of works of art on paper produced by Native American communities
coupled with a research component to examine laminated artwork
within the collection. This survey is an initial step to identify
preservation strategies for laminated objects within conservation
and preservation institutions.

Please email the completed survey with your job title and
institution to kennedy.tara [at] nmnh__si__edu.  Thank you in advance for
your attention to this survey. We will be compiling results in six
weeks time; the results will be available in July.

Condition

    1.  Do you have cellulose acetate laminated material in your
        collection? Yes or No.

        If you do not have laminated material in your collection,
        please skip to "Treatment" section of the survey.

    2.  What is the general condition of your laminated material?
        (Scale 1-5; 1 best rating, 5 worst rating)

    3.  Have you ever performed acidity/ off-gassing tests using,
        for example, AD strips to evaluate the condition of your
        collection? Yes or No. If Yes, please describe.

    4.  Do you detect an acetic acid odor emanating from your
        objects (vinegar syndrome)? Yes or No. Or any other odor?
        Please describe.

    5.  How is your laminated material stored, both at a group and
        item level?

    6.  Is laminated material stored within the same unit as
        non-laminated material? Yes or No. Is this a concern?

    7.  (Please delete those which are not relevant) Does your
        laminated material have: bleeding media, melted media,
        cracked laminate, tears, blistered laminate, stickiness
        between leaves, cleaving laminate, transparent paper
        substrate, pressure sensitive tape mends beneath the
        laminate, other?

    8.  (Please delete those which are not relevant) What media is
        on the primary support of your laminated material? graphite,
        carbon ink, sepia, bistre, iron gall ink, ball point,
        aniline dye based media, gouache, chalks, charcoals, pastel,
        colored pencils, wax based media, wax seal attachments,
        other?

Treatment

    9.  Do you perform conservation treatment on laminated material?
        Yes or No. Please describe.

    10. In which cases do you delaminate? Please describe. Is this
        in respect of certain media? Yes or No.  What solvents do
        you use and why?

    11. What do you consider to be acceptable loss of media when
        delaminating?

    12. Do you perform media testing through the laminate? Yes or
        No. If Yes, please describe.

    13. Do you fix small areas of solvent sensitive (aniline?) media
        prior to delamination treatment? Yes or No. If Yes, please
        describe method.


                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 14:51
                  Distributed: Tuesday, April 3, 2001
                       Message Id: cdl-14-51-039
                                  ***