Iron stove

We recently acquired to our collection a stove that is around 100
years old and was made in a local foundry.  It's quite unique and we
don't have one from this particular foundry in our collection.  We'd
like to be able to put it on display but I would like to get the
corrosion on the piece stabilized first.

The stove is made of iron and has some nickel plating.  All of the
stove except for the door has been stored in a barn for the past few
years.  As a result, there is quite a bit of corrosion on the stove.
I've been researching different methods as to what I could do to
stabilize the corrosion.  Tannic acid is a method that keeps coming
up over and over again.  It was also recommended to me by a fellow
colleague as a method I could use.  Does anyone have experience
treating a similar object with tannic acid? Or is there another
method I could use?

Also, is there a treatment that could be done on the nickel plating
to slow down the corrosion? A lot of corrosion is showing through
the plating and in some areas, it is difficult to even tell that
there was once nickel there.  I read about a method where alkaline
glycerol was used but this was on nickel plating that had a copper
alloy as a base.

Mary Fincher
Museum Technician
Huron County Museum
110 North Street
Goderich, ON
519-524-2686 ext. 206


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 23:19
                 Distributed: Sunday, November 29, 2009
                       Message Id: cdl-23-19-020
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