{"id":880,"date":"2011-06-10T00:20:17","date_gmt":"2011-06-10T00:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conservators-converse.org\/?p=880"},"modified":"2011-06-10T00:20:17","modified_gmt":"2011-06-10T00:20:17","slug":"880","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/2011\/06\/10\/880\/","title":{"rendered":"39th Annual Meeting \u2013 Book and Paper Session, June 3rd \u201cUsing Magnets as a Conservation Tool: A New Look at Tension Drying Damaged Vellum Documents\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tammy Jordan of Etherington Conservation Services – East<\/a> presented on her treatment of a heavily cockled parchment document. \u00a0The document was a certificate from the Cinncinnati Society, which honored veterans of the Revolutionary War. \u00a0The document was water damaged and had been purposefully cut into several sections, then sewn back together with cotton thread. \u00a0There was no evidence of mold and the document had not been lined.<\/p>\n

Research into the document\u2019s history revealed that it belonged to a Captain Nathaniel Leonard, who had been suspended from the society for 4 years for ungentlemanly behavior, beginning on July 4th, 1799. \u00a0This information supported the hypothesis that the document had been purposefully destroyed and reconstituted, making the sewing important to the document\u2019s history. \u00a0The sewing was too fragile to allow the document to be flattened on a vacuum table or by tension drying. \u00a0Even flattening the document under pressure put the sewing at risk, as it would not allow the tension to be adjusted as the document relaxed.<\/p>\n

Tammy needed a solution that would allow her to both apply tension locally and easily adjust the tension as the document relaxed. \u00a0She turned to rare earth magnets for her solution. \u00a0Rare earth magnets are available in a variety of strengths and sizes. \u00a0Tammy used 11\/16\u201d diamater magnets with a profile of 1\/32\u201d. \u00a0The thin profile reduced the attraction\/repulsion between magnets, making their repositioning safe and easy. \u00a0The pull force of her magnets was 1.63 lbs, but Tammy wrapped each magnet in a little hollytex bundle to reduce friction, reduce pull force, and a create a handy dandy handle.<\/p>\n

The magnets only work, of course, because the document is flattened on a metal surface. Tammy used the following layers, from top to bottom, to protect her work: Polyester film, dry blotter, object, dry blotter, polyester film, dry blotter, metal tray. In the localized areas where Tammy was humidifying the document, she used the following layers, from top to bottom: Polyester film, damp blotter, dry blotter or Gore-Tex, object, dry blotter, damp blotter, polyester film, dry blotter, metal tray. The extra layers between the object and the metal tray help further reduce the pull force of the magnets.<\/p>\n

Because of the complexity of the cockling, Tammy realized that she would need to diagram the fiber bundles in the parchment to better understand how humidification would guide the flattening. \u00a0Once she better understood how the document would relax, she began working from the inside of the document – applying local humidity – and worked her way outwards to flatten the full document. \u00a0The magnets allowed her to see almost all of the document, and she was able to adjust them according to the easily visible tension shifts in the parchment.<\/p>\n

Once the document was flattened, Tammy created infills for areas of loss with cast paper and a 3% gelatin solution. \u00a0The treated document was string mounted to mat board. \u00a0Tammy took special care to attach the string mounts to create extra support around the stitched areas. \u00a0The mounted vellum certificate was framed and sealed.<\/p>\n

Questions? \u00a0Just email Tammy at tamaralynnjordan at yahoo dot com<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tammy Jordan of Etherington Conservation Services – East presented on her treatment of a heavily cockled parchment document. \u00a0The document was a certificate from the Cinncinnati Society, which honored veterans of the Revolutionary War. \u00a0The document was water damaged and had been purposefully cut into several sections, then sewn back together with cotton thread. \u00a0There … Continue reading “39th Annual Meeting \u2013 Book and Paper Session, June 3rd \u201cUsing Magnets as a Conservation Tool: A New Look at Tension Drying Damaged Vellum Documents\u201d”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,23,16],"tags":[70],"class_list":["post-880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annual-meeting","category-book-and-paper","category-specialty-sessions","tag-aics-39th-annual-meeting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}