April ’20

Enamel Advertising Sign

April’s ‘Object of the Month’ is an enamelled advertising sign from Beamish Museum.

An enamelled sign advertising Ogdens Redbreast Flake Tobacco from Beamish Museum’s Collection. The sign is bent at a 135˚ concave angle. The front of the sign depicts a carton of flake tobacco which reads ‘Ogden’s Redbreast Rough Cut Flake Reg. Trade Marks Nos 213704 & 232103’. The carton has an image of a red-breasted robin. The background of the sign is mostly dark blue, however there are large gaps which have been painted black. There is a large accumulation of dust and grease on the obverse, as well as a large smear of fill material under the ‘E’ of ‘REDBREAST’. Several fills in the enamel have not been painted, there are some gaps where there is no fill material and bare metal has been left. Several of the fills are coming away from the backing metal, lifting the paint and some enamel with them. The ‘A’ of ‘FLAKE’ has been cut through as a large amount of enamel has been removed where the weakest point is in the bend of the metal.

Ogdens was founded in 1860 when Thomas Ogden opened a shop in Park Lane in the south end of Liverpool. More shops opened across town during the next decade, as well as a factory in St James Street. After Ogden died in 1890, the running of the company was taken over by his two sons.

In 1901, Ogdens was sold to the American Tobacco Company but a year later it was back in British hands when the Imperial Tobacco Company was formed out of a merger between several companies. (www.sarsfieldmemorialsliverpool.co.uk)

Conservation

The sign was to be restored as far as possible while minimising change to its original materials, thereby minimising loss. As such reshaping was deemed necessary in order to restore it to its original state and to improve the aesthetics. Both hot and cold shaping were considered, and after reviewing the positive and negative aspects of each option cold shaping was chosen.

Before reshaping took place the reverse of the object was cleaned using 50:50 ethanol:deionised water with synperonic A7 to remove the surface dirt. Following this, the masking tape on the reverse of the sign was removed using a combination of acetone and dental tools.

The decision was made to remove all previous fills on the reverse as they were unsightly. The fill material was removed prior to reshaping using warm deionised water, dental tools and sandpaper.

The sign was reshaped by placing it on a bench atop two planks of wood of equal length and depth. It was then clamped to one of the planks, securing it in place. A second clamp was placed in the centre of the sign where the bend was. The clamp was tightened a couple of times each day for three weeks until the sign was 30˚ bent in the opposite direction. This was done so that if the object sprang back once the clamps were loosened, it would level out flatter rather than back to its shape pre-clamping.

During reshaping, the front of the sign was surface cleaned using deionised water and synperonic A7 to remove grease and dirt. Following cleaning, the poorly matched acrylic pigment was removed as it was unsightly and obscuring the original decoration. The acrylic was removed with cotton swabs in acetone in conjunction with a dental tool to scrape the majority of the paint away. Through this process it was found that much of the acrylic had been painted over existing enamel unnecessarily, perhaps in an attempt to blend the colours of the enamel and fills together. After scraping the acrylic away, the fills were left uneven. 100 grit sandpaper was used to smooth the fills down, this also removed excess fill that stood too far off the sign.

Previous analysis deduced that the fill material used in the past restoration of the object was likely plaster. In order to avoid adding different materials to the object, plaster of Paris was used as a fill material for areas of the sign where enamel had come off as well as for areas where the old fills had been removed. The gap was first coated with a layer of Primal B60A, a water-resistant adhesive that is used in the conservation of objects which are to be stored outdoors. This was required as to not introduce water to bare metal by putting plaster of Paris straight on to it. It was deemed only necessary to fill areas which were significant to the cohesiveness of the object, therefore areas which had lost enamel around the edges were not filled.

Once all previous attempts at colour matching had been removed, the sign was left with multiple areas of bare grey plaster. This made it easier to match the new fill colour. Acrylic paint was chosen as the medium in which to colour match the fills to the enamel. Although semi-glossy, it did not match the glossiness of the enamel remaining on the object so porcelain restoration glaze with 3% matting agent was applied.

Stay tuned for next month’s object!