Silverfish

Holly Chase <holly.chase [at] sunrider__com> writes

>Last week I had found a large, healthy silverfish crawling on the
>fabric of one of our display cases that currently houses 17-19th
>Century silk dragon robes. ...
>...
>I had contacted one paper conservator who advised against fumigating
>the robes explaining that fumigation tends to leave a chemical
>residue on fabrics. Instead, she suggested finding an "anoxia
>treatment chamber" but didn't know of anyone in the area who has
>one.

An easier solution is to make small open packages, envelopes, of
boric acid mixed with chalk and place the packages in the display,
for a slow kill.  For faster results mix boric acid with substances
that are particularly attractive to silverfish they will come and
eat the boric acid and die.

In the US you can purchase boric acid at your local pharmacy. If
boric acid is not available at the drug store try a jewelers supply
house boric acid is commonly used as flux with hard/silver and gold
solder

Rabbi Benjamin Cohen
Certified and Registered Sofer StaM/Scribe/Baal Mageah, rabbi,artist


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 21:16
                   Distributed: Friday, July 13, 2007
                       Message Id: cdl-21-16-005
                                  ***