Infilling outdoor marble sculpture

Vanessa Wiggin <vanessa [at] artworksconservation__com> writes

>I have been asked to quote on the retreatment of an outdoor
>sculpture made of black and white marble. ...
>
>The losses were previously infilled with an epoxy resin and marble
>dust mixture.  While the result was aesthetically pleasing, the
>infills began to fail almost immediately.  Now two years later,
>almost all the fills have been lost or are pulling away from the
>stone.

I suggest you email your question to Paul Hostyn <info<-a t->resiplast< . >be>
of Resiplast Belgium <info<-a t->resiplast< . >be>  He is their senior chemist
and has been helping me for years. I help manage an archaeological
site in Turkey and am head of conservation there. I use their
product 'Aquarep' to fill surface areas on marble door jambs. It is
an epoxy that is water miscible (for cleaning up) and you can tint
it with pigments.

Whilst I prefer not to use epoxies for surface work the colour
fastness is excellent.This is has great adhesion, you must score the
area first of course

This was tested for many years at another site in Turkey and in the
lab, I have used it on this site for 4 years and apart from the
mixing being a bit complicated I cannot fault it yet.  Turkey offers
a good testing ground with extremes of weather and temperature. I
use it when a fill is preferable and not otherwise.  Paul visits
annually to help train team members in its use and he is the best
person to explain it to you.

Jane Foley ACR
Sculpture and Objects
Litas Liparini Restoration Studio
823 Main St Evanston IL 60202
847-491-0110


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 21:60
                    Distributed: Friday, May 9, 2008
                       Message Id: cdl-21-60-003
                                  ***