Everything has been quite manic in the conservation lab this last year which has unfortunately meant we’ve not been able to keep on top of the blogging or the object of the month. However, things have calmed down and since we’re about to receive a new intake of students we’re picking up the blogging pen again and planning to get back to it and aim for two blogs a month over the next year.
Before the students arrive we’re going to take a look at a few of the same type of object that have been conserved over the past few years. The objects in question; rubber floor mats from Beamish Museum. We’re going to look at a couple of the mats which have been conserved over the past few years; one for Pelaw Polish, and one for Gibbs Dentifrice.
These mats, from Beamish Living History Museum in the north of England are now in use around the museum. As Beamish is a living history museum, many of the objects held there are in use by the staff or public. The aim is to allow visitors to see what life was like and this means objects from the past must be displayed and used in the present as they would have. Conservation treatments used on the mats therefore would need to ensure they were able to be used around the site on a regular basis.
Pelaw Polish
This mat advertises Pelaw polish, a range of metal and leather polishes manufactured in the Pelaw district of Newcastle and are dated to between the 1930’s and 1970’s.
Gibbs Dentifrice
This mat advertises Gibbs dentifrice; a teeth cleaning substance that came in a tin. A wet toothbrush would be rubbed over the surface to make the substance froth and then the teeth could be brushed and cleaned.
Condition
- One of the mats was badly bent and deformed.
- Both mats had detached pieces or areas of missing material.
- Both mats were covered in a layer of dirt.
- Both mats had writing on the surface that had become discoloured.
Conservation Treatment
The mats were cleaned using an appropriate solvent and a soft bristled toothbrush in order to loosen the dirt in the grooves, however it was found that the pigmented lettering didn’t react well to any solvent and so this had to be cleaned very carefully using slightly dampened swabs.
As one of the mats was badly deformed, it needed to be flattened before further treatments could be undertaken to stabilise breaks, tears and missing surface material. The main requirements for relaxing and reshaping the rubber were heat and pressure and for these reasons heated sand trays were used to gently soften and reshape the rubber.
All breaks and detached surface material was adhered back together using an adhesive specific to rubber and a number of the breaks were backed using a textile based material in order to provide extra strength and support while the mats were in use around the museum site. Any areas of missing surface material were infilled using a suitable filler and colour matched using acrylic pigments. These areas of repair would blend with the original material when looked at from a distance but were distinguishable when examined up close. Finally a surface coating was added to the mats in order to assist in protecting them while in use or on display. It also helped to give a uniform finish, allowing the mats to look as they would have when originally in use.