Desk

The library has a Chautauqua Industrial Art desk made by the Lewis
E. Myers and Co. in 1923 that needs to be prepared for exhibition.
The desk, or the section of it that the library has, is a shallow
wooden box (approximately 16 x 20 x 3 inches) that can be propped up
on a table, divided into compartments in the lower half for a slate,
chalk, erasers, etc.  At the top, a long, 19 1/2 inch wide scroll is
wound around 2 wooden dowels. The dowels pass through the sides of
the box which holds them in place. Rotating the knobs at the dowel
ends unwinds or rewinds the scroll.

The scroll contains lessons that the student would copy onto the
slate as s/he rolled the scroll from the upper dowel to the lower
one. As I think there were other lessons, the scrolls must have been
changeable.

My problem is that I need to remove the torn and misaligned scroll
from the box to repair it. To do that I would like to remove the
knob that is on the left end of the lower dowel. The knobs seem
tightly attached to the dowels. They do not appear to be screwed on.
The upper scroll has no knob (or is missing the knob) on the
left-hand end so the scroll could be rewound onto the upper dowel
and removed. However, the scroll is fragile, and removing the knob
and sliding the lower dowel out would be the safest way to remove
the scroll. Are the knobs meant to be removable? I would appreciate
any information about this type of desk.

Ann Douglas
Conservator
Preservation and Digitization
Toronto Reference Library
Toronto, Ontario M4W 2G
Canada


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 15:52
                Distributed: Thursday, January 24, 2002
                       Message Id: cdl-15-52-015
                                  ***