Internship Experience

Interns: Keerat, Chetna, Lovely, Subhanshi and Manit

24 JUNE 2017

We are a group of youngsters (Chetna, Subhashini and Lovely) pursuing Masters in Conservation and Archaeology .We have come to beautiful city of Chandigarh to gain practical experience in Paper/Archival Conservation. We will be working on blueprints for next few days. Keerat and Manit (other two interns) had already prepared the condition assessment and done dry cleaning and flattening of the maps that we will start mending.

Today, we started our day with discussion on conservation on maps. We will share on this blog an example of conservation of a blue print map in which we’ll be showing techniques, materials and methods for tear mending.
Firstly, we’ll give a little brief about blue- print maps.

Blue print maps

A blue print is a reproduction of a technical drawing or design using a contact print process on light sensitive sheets. The result is the copy of the original image with the clear background area rendered dark blue and the image reproduced as a white line.
John Herschel is the astronomer who introduced the process of blue prints in 1842.

Conservation of Blue Print

Steps involved in conservation procedure
* Initial Strengthening (if required)
* Cleaning
* Mending and/or Backing
* Preservation

First, we’ll be discussing the mending issues.

Tear Mending
with the due course of time the paper becomes weak and brittle because of oxidation and shortening of the cellulose fibres.

Note: The condition assessment including photo documentation was already done by the lab and was provided to us for reference. This helped us in the decision making purpose of mending. (It helped us in locating the tears of the map).

Materials Required

Distilled water/De-ionized water
Brushes
Gloves (cotton gloves )
Adhesive (CMC)
Beaker
Glass Rod
Glass slides/weights
Digital weighing machine
Ethanol
Polyester film
Spun polyester
Tweezers
Bone folder/Teflon Folder
Blotting Paper
Weights
PROCESS

STEP 1-We began our process by preparing adhesive CMC (Carboxymethylcellulose) and left it for15-20mins to dissolve completely.

STEP 2-We identified the tears in the blue print maps and started working on it.

STEP 3- We kept the map over the backlight table. Underneath the map Hollytex sheet and polyester film were placed.

STEP 4-We used Japanese tissue paper to begin the process of mending. With the help of wet brush we traced an area a little larger than the tear to be mended. Then we tear the Japanese paper with hand (we do not cut tissue with scissors so that we can have frayed grip on the edges).

STEP 5-We applied the adhesive on the Japanese tissue which is required to cover the torn portion.