Buried metal

Jack Ogden <jack [at] striptwist__com> writes

>There are sometimes minute, very fragile meandering tubes on ancient
>buried metal objects that I have always thought of as 'worm casts'
>(though that might not be the right term). ...

We haven't used the epoxy grade in question, but have found a
glass-like finish can be achieved on acrylic, polyester and epoxy
resins by using successive grades of wet-and-dry carborundum papers
(400, 800, 1200, 2400 grades), cleaning with water between each
grade to remove particles, followed by polishing with Solvol Autosol
chrome polish, followed by Duraglit silver polish wadding.  This may
sound daunting, but each grade is used only briefly, so the whole
process is very quick. Using the carborundum papers wet helps to
prevent clogging and keeps the temperature of the surface down,
preventing the resin melting. Hope this helps,

Richard and Helena Jaeschke
Archaeological conservators


                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 18:8
                 Distributed: Wednesday, July 21, 2004
                        Message Id: cdl-18-8-004
                                  ***