Gap-filling materials for Bakelite

Heather Thomas <calluna [at] bulldoghome__com> writes

>I am looking for research and information on suitable fillers to
>repair a Bakelite box. I have successfully used Paraloid B72 to
>repair a crack, but there is still a chip out of the lid that needs
>filling. (The Paraloid seems to cause no problems to the material,
>but the xylene used to tidy overspill seems to have removed what is
>possibly degradation product.) The fill must be able to be coloured,
>either with pigments or over painted.

For gap filling a void on this precise situation, I would suggest
epoxy Araldite 1253 carvable paste, which can be worked with
woodworking tools and accepts well over painted after full cure.
Also, for full reversibility of it, you can create a reversible
barrier in between the epoxy and the original material, and this
barrier can be made of PB 72 or Butvar B98 at 15% on acetone or
other suitable solvent for those resins. Examples for the use of
reversible barrier for this purpose can be found on the following
articles:

  <URL:http://aic.stanford.edu/jaic/articles/jaic43-01-003_1.html>
  <URL:http://aic.stanford.edu/jaic/articles/jaic40-01-002_3.html>
  <URL:http://aic.stanford.edu/jaic/articles/jaic37-01-004_2.html>
  <URL:http://aic.stanford.edu/jaic/articles/jaic28-01-003.html>
  <URL:http://aic.stanford.edu/jaic/articles/jaic28-01-003_2.html>

Miguel Garcia
Assistant Conservator
The Sherman Fairchild Center for Objects Conservation
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10028-0198


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 22:27
                 Distributed: Sunday, November 9, 2008
                       Message Id: cdl-22-27-003
                                  ***