Consolidating panel painting

Petar Gerasimov <pgerasimov [at] yahoo__com> writes

>A team of conservators are working at the reinforcement
>(consolidation) of the several tempera panel painting. The wood have
>a great damage caused by worms, so it is like a sponge. It is
>causing the problems during the treating of the surface-painting
>layer and the ground.

The preferred consolidant would usually be Paraloid B72 as the most
stable resin, but occasionally when dealing with severe worm damage,
especially where there are flight holes in the paint film giving
rise to the risk of disturbing varnish, retouching, or original with
solvents such as xylene, it may be advisable to use B67 in white
spirit. While it may not be so reversible, and will discolour with
age, I do not think these are of primary concern when compared to
the advantages of using a slower evaporating solvent, which will be
a lot better to work with (health-wise), with less risk of damage to
the paint film.

More volatile solvents can create a surface film which may trap
solvent within the structure for longer than those which are slower.
At 30% concentration of B67 in W/S I have  found penetration to be
good and repeatable over a period of several days until saturation
is achieved. When high volumes are used it will be necessary to wait
for up to 4 weeks before the solvent has left and full strength is
achieved. I have treated panels  in this way, where several litres
were successfully introduced into relatively small areas.

Ray Marchant
London studio
Hamilton Kerr Institute.


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 13:52
                  Distributed: Friday, April 21, 2000
                       Message Id: cdl-13-52-007
                                  ***