Attending to Old Friends

Recently I had some time to spend working on a pair of early 18th Century Italian friends near Mordor.  As is almost always the case with wooden objects veneered with tortoiseshell, the delamination problem is never really solved as the wooden substrate and the mostly thermoset protein polymer veneer react to moisture changes at  different rates.  In this particular case that problem has been exacerbated in the distant past by the traditional housekeeping practice of slathering tortoiseshell with olive oil and linseed oil.   The practice is deleterious is every way, especially over time.

This time there were two sections of tortoiseshell that had become fully detached like this one, they were reattached with 192 g.w.s. hot animal hide glue after cleaning the substrate.

Then I worked my way around the mirror frames and identified a dozen places with delamination but not detachment and laid these back down after working glue underneath.

In the end I cleaned up the surfaces and applied a thin layer of Mel’s Wax over the surface.

I also documented the two dozen small losses on the frames; these are not detrimental per se and the client may want me to address these losses at some point in the future.

For now they are back up on the wall doing what they are supposed to do – look beautiful.  I no longer accept new clients, but expect to care for these old friends as long as I am abe.