19th century newspaper

A local institution with a very small budget has an historical
(mid-1830s) newspaper that they want to conserve.  They have a
volunteer who does excellent book repairs including taking apart,
washing, paper repair and rebinding.  They would like to know the
best method of washing and mending the paper.  It was mended at some
point with onion skin and what looks to be hide glue, also the edges
have been reinforced. All binding and repair materials are acidic,
though the paper itself is not.  It is soiled and there are
notations on the paper in iron gall ink which is degrading the paper
beneath.  They would like to know if washing the paper will result
in the loss of the iron gall notations (due to weakness of the
paper, not solubility of the ink).  What would be the long term
effect of bleaching the paper with very dilute household bleach? My
recommendation was to wash the paper, which appears to be cotton
rag, in filtered water only and repair with japanese tissue and
wheat starch paste.  Does anyone have anything more to suggest?

Mary Russell McMillen
Houston, TX


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 24:14
                  Distributed: Monday, August 30, 2010
                       Message Id: cdl-24-14-032
                                  ***