Vent: Took me 6 months to figure out why my pottery shards kept crumbling during restoration

Had a box of Roman amphora pieces from a dig near Lincoln that I started cleaning last February. Every time I tried to remove the dirt, the surface just flaked off. Tried different brushes, different water temps, even let them soak. Nothing worked. Finally asked a conservator at a museum in York what I was doing wrong. She said I was drying them too fast after washing. Been wrapping them in damp paper towels overnight before air drying and it's night and day. All that time lost because nobody told me that one basic step.

2 comments

2 Comments

kai60221d ago

Man, I had the exact same problem with a batch of medieval floor tiles last year. The conservation trick that saved me was using a 50/50 mix of distilled water and isopropyl alcohol for the first clean instead of straight water. It evaporates slower and gives the surface time to adjust. Also switched to soft boar bristle brushes from an art supply shop, way gentler than the nylon ones. That damp paper towel trick is solid though, I do that now with any piece that feels crumbly after washing.

grant.jade21d ago

Dude, that 50/50 trick works on old pottery too. I had a crumbling terracotta pot that was falling apart until I tried that mix and it actually held together. Nice call on the boar bristle brushes @kai602, I switched to those last month for my vintage stuff and it's night and day compared to the scratchy nylon ones.