Varnish spray booth

On behalf of Laurent Sozzani, Gwen M. Tauber <tauber [at] rijksmuseum__nl>
writes

>    I am writing from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.  Due to too many
>    obstacles to describe here, we are having a difficult time
>    including a varnish spray booth into our newly planned
>    restoration and research building. ...

I faced the same problem for 30 years and finally worked with an
engineer to come up with a really good paintings "spray booth".  I
proposed a radical design which we built in a new storage facility
which worked so well we built two more in our newly renovated labs
in our main museum building. They work brilliantly.  The trick is
the air comes into the booth from the top of the unit and is drawn
down through a perforated floor, rather like an air curtain.  The
make up air is temperature and humidity controlled, though the
humidity control is not as precise as the rest of the building.  We
use them for varnishing pictures with spray or brush and also find
them useful for some solvent cleaning jobs.   We installed one in
our frames and furniture lab which is used in much the same way.  I
hope to present a paper on our building experiences including the
design of the booths at the IIC Bilbao meeting.  If you or any of
your colleagues are traveling in Australia, you are most welcome to
come for a visit and see them. I don't have all the air flow
information at hand, but I can put you in touch with the engineer
who worked on the three units who will have all the specifications
and equipment used.

Tom Dixon
Chief Conservator
National Gallery of Victoria
Melbourne Australia


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 17:38
                 Distributed: Tuesday, October 28, 2003
                       Message Id: cdl-17-38-002
                                  ***