Doug!

This made me chuckle!

Before I became a conservator I was a museum blacksmith at Colonial
Williamsburg. You are what we called a "Ruster". There are many people who
can almost look at iron or steel and it begins to rust. I am sure there is
an online support group for this!

Seriously, I have see fingerprints etched into iron, steel, copper, brass,
bronze, and silver. So wear gloves anytime you handle metals, please!
Otherwise you might end up in one of my lectures.

Cheers!
Dave

David Harvey
Senior Conservator and Museum Consultant
Los Angles CA  USA
www,cityofangelsconservation.weebly.com
<http://www.cityofangelsconservation.weebly.com>

On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 9:38 AM, D NISHIMURA <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>  Ha ha. Some of us have to wear gloves, especially when handling many
> metals, varnished wood, and photographs.
>
>
>
> As a kid, I remember devarnishing wood an my piano bench had a nice butt
> print unvarnished on it. During summer events, I also stuck to varnished
> wooden chairs. Using axes and paddles tended to cause blisters as they
> stuck. When I worked at the Public Archives of Canada as a summer student,
> my handprints were all over the top of the registrar’s desk.
>
>
>
> I need to wear either plastic eyeglass frames or stainless steel or
> titanium. Otherwise the temple pieces turn into fine wires and break. I
> played in the band and took off the lacquer of my trumpet and ate through
> the back of a watch once. Unfortunately, the back of the watch also served
> as a conductor in the watch circuit so it died before I got completely
> through (metal compounds don’t conduct electricity very well at room
> temperature.)
>
>
>
> After I joined IPI, I got a call from my old lab at the National Archives
> of Canada (they had just changed names) asking me to participate in an
> experiment. They sent down two sheets of cold rolled steel. First I was to
> wear plastic gloves of 30 minutes, then remove them and touch one of the
> plates. Then I was to wash my hands with a non-ionic surfactant (for 30
> seconds), rinse under running tap water for a minute, and then rinse in
> distilled water for another 30 seconds. Let my hands air dry for 5 minutes
> and touch the second plate. Put on gloves, to wrap the plates back up and
> ship them back to Ottawa.
>
>
>
> They labelled both plates and incubated them at high temperature and
> humidity following a standard protocol from the steel industry in a test
> for so-called “rusters”. In the industry this test is used to screen out
> employees who can’t touch non-stainless steel without causing it to rust.
>
>
>
> All 26 test subjects caused the plate in the glove test to rust, but I was
> the only person to cause the plate in the wash test to rust as well. The
> problem, according to the steel industry is that some of us have a
> relatively high saline content to our sweat, although other compounds can
> contribute. So I promote the activity in an oxygen starvation cell making
> things rust by making oxygen and humidity act as a more potent oxidizing
> source.
>
>
>
> Polaroid says that diet and prescription drugs can also affect activity
> specifically with photographs and apparently their favorite guinea pig
> stopped deteriorating Polaroid prints when his doctor changed his high
> blood pressure medication.
>
>
>
> Anyway, some of us really have to wear plastic gloves to safely handle
> collection objects. Be nice to me or I’ll touch your car. ;-)
>
>
>
> -Doug
>
> Douglas Nishimura
>
> Image Permanence Institute
>
> Rochester Institute of Technology
>
>
>
> *From:* Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] *On
> Behalf Of *Marybeth S Tomka
> *Sent:* Monday, September 15, 2014 4:08 PM
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* [MUSEUM-L] the use of gloves
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> To unsubscribe from the MUSEUM-L list, click the following link:
> http://home.ease.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-HOME.exe?SUBED1=MUSEUM-L&A=1
>

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).