Outdoor sculpture

I was recently asked advice upon an outdoor sculpture, as this is
not an area I am familiar with I thought I would see what other
people suggested. The sculpture is a large stainless steel monument
that is 6.6 m high and 3. 6 m wide. It is located at the base of a
heavily trafficked bridged and a not as widely used thoroughfare.
The sculpture is exposed to a lot of road debris including sand and
salt in the winter and street cleaners in the warmer months. It is
also splashed frequently in rainstorms.

The sculpture is intended to appear as silver and shine at the foot
of the bridge. The artist set up an inspection and maintenance
schedule of every 5 and 10 years with major cleaning being required
every 10 years.

The problem with this sculpture is that after just four years of
being out on display there are already signs of rust appearing on
the stainless steel. The side facing the more highly traversed
thoroughfare is highly splattered from road debris. Many of the
points of contact are now starting to show signs of rust.

The question posed were: was the material used not a high quality
stainless steel as it is already starting to rust as not every sheet
of steel used has rust on it (thus resulting in the artist to be
brought in to do some work); what type of cleaning can be done on
the sculpture; and is there a coating that can be applied to the
sculpture to prevent future rusting but still give the sculpture a
silver look.

The artist gave some cleaning recommendations which include the
following:

    Annual cleaning with a pressure washer and detergent.

    An inspection every five years and

    If need be a cleaning using a "pickling" solution formulated for
    stainless steel and then a thorough power washing

It is the City's desire to use a detergent that is environmentally
friendly as the sculpture sits atop the river bank.

If there is anyone who has dealt with this type of large scale
outdoor public art that could give some suggestions as to care and
maintenance and products that they have found useful that would be
great.

Mark Anderson
Conservation Technician
Western Development Museum, Curatorial Centre
2935 Melville St.
Saskatoon SK. S7J 5A6
306-934-1400
Fax: 306-934-4467


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 24:13
                 Distributed: Thursday, August 19, 2010
                       Message Id: cdl-24-13-022
                                  ***