Flaking

I have a 1920-1930 vintage clock with a painted wooden case, and the
paint is flaking, especially on the edges. It is a brown paint over
a white undercoat, and both layers are flaking. This clock is not
commercially valuable, although it has some minor historical
interest, so I submitted it to an artist colleague in the hopes that
she could re-adhere the edges of the remaining paint to the
underlying coating or to the wood, thereby preventing further
flaking.

The artist tells me that her attempts to re-adhere the edges with a
thinned adhesive and an itsy-bitsy small brush are causing further
bits of paint to flake off when she attempts to add the adhesive
beneath the loose paint edges. She further tells me that she
believes the paint to be a milk paint, and that she does not know
how to proceed without causing more damage. Things are, therefore,
on hold for the moment.

Terry Conners, Ph.D.
Forest Products Specialist
Department of Forestry
University of Kentucky
202 T.P. Cooper Building
Lexington KY 40546-0073
859-257-2463


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 20:26
                 Distributed: Monday, November 13, 2006
                       Message Id: cdl-20-26-020
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