Alternative to xylene

Firstly I would like to thank all those who responded to our cry for
help.

Some feed back: one of the first replies I received was from Valerie
Tomlinson, who suggested the use of ethyl acetate, which we did test
and got very satisfactory results with.

We use Paraloid B72 primarily as a protective coating for oil on
canvas paintings and we sometimes use Paraloid, at 20% or 10%
strength as a protective coating and apply it by means of a spray
gun connected to an air compressor.

Paraloid dissolved with no problems at all in ethyl acetate. To
prevent the ethyl acetate from evaporating too quickly during
spraying it was found that the air pressure had to be low, between
0.5 to 1 bar max and it was sprayed at a distance of approximately
30cm away from the surface, so it might be a challenge to get an
even coating on large format paintings.

Tg: We have test sprayed a painting this way and will be checking
its surface for any changes. Temperatures here in Malta can reach
the high 30's (Celsius) indoors during summer.

Once again thanks to all those who have shown an interest in our
problem.

Ray Spiteri
Senior Conservator
Conservation Division
Heritage Malta
Ex-Royal Naval Hospital
Triq il-Missjoni Taljana
Bighi, Kalkara
+356 2180 7675 ext. 255


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 25:41
                 Distributed: Wednesday, March 7, 2012
                       Message Id: cdl-25-41-002
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