Tag Archives: laboratory

In the conservation lab

Posted on by
2

I became the museum’s assistant conservator just a few months before the new conservation lab opened. We have certainly made good use of the extra space! The lab is full with all kinds of glass objects in need of some TLC and that’s what I’m here for.

Sometimes the objects I treat are ones that have shattered into many small pieces and sometimes there are just one or two broken or missing pieces.  A lot of the treatments are re-treatments of old repairs that have failed.

Usually I work on at least 2 or 3 objects at a time because the adhesives and resins we use can take days to completely set. Here are pictures of some of projects I recently finished or am currently working on. Check back for updates as these projects progress!

Restoration of Prunted Beaker (Part Two)

Posted on by
1

 

In the second part of this series, Stephen Koob, the Museum’s conservator, describes the methods used to fill the losses of a prunted beaker on display in Medieval Glass for Popes, Princes, and Peasants. 

 

Now that the beaker has been reassembled, Koob uses plasticine to first create a backing for the losses. Plaster of paris is mixed and poured carefully on top of the backing, creating a perfect match for the loss. The plaster “piece” is then removed and a mold made of it using silicone rubber.  Koob uses epoxy resin to create a cast of the actual fill piece. Acrylic adhesive is used to put the fill piece in place and, with a little clean-up, the result is a fully restored, structurally stable piece.

Prunted Beaker Restoration

Posted on by
3

Watch as our conservator, Stephen Koob, restores a 13th/14th-century prunted beaker for our newest exhibition, Medieval Glass for Popes, Princes, and Peasants. Prunts are blobs of glass applied to a glass object as decoration. These prunts may also have a practical application, affording someone a firm grasp on the beaker, in the absence of a handle. 

This piece is on loan from the Museum zu Allerheiligen, Schaffhausen, in Switzerland. It is part of a group of objects excavated in the 1920’s and had previously been restored, but was in need of a better, more stable, and more presentable restoration. 

With painstaking care and precision Koob disassembled the beaker (48 pieces in total, 5% missing), cleaned the fragments and began the process of reassembly. He filled the areas of missing pieces with synthetic resin (epoxy). 

All of the conservation work the Museum undertakes is reversible: the adhesives that hold the glass pieces together and the epoxy fills can be removed if the beakers need to be retreated in the future. Sometimes, more pieces are found in excavations, or the epoxy yellows. 

The total restoration time was 20 hours over a period of 2 ½ months and we followed the process along the way in this video. This is part one of a two-part series. Part two will follow Koob as he uses tinted resin to fill the losses for this piece.

Conservation Lab Renovations

Posted on by
Reply

What excites a glass conservator even more than a new puzzle to put together? How about a brand new room, with lots more space to put the puzzles on!

The Museum’s conservator, Stephen Koob, extolled the virtues of the newly renovated conservation lab at the Museum, which officially opened on February 5. “It is almost twice the size as the previous lab and it offers the conservation department much more visibility within the Museum, so we can host groups, teach conservators in training, and have more rooms for interns to get hands-on experience.” 

As artists working in glass continue to stretch the limits of the material, creating pieces in larger scale, using adhesives, and combining different types of glass, the Museum’s need for expanded conservation facilities has increased. The new work room’s size and configuration allows the team to rearrange tables within the space to accommodate larger and differently shaped pieces of glass. In addition to the expanded space, the room also offers more appropriate lighting, with large windows that let in a great deal of northern light, the best type for artistic reconstruction. 

“Our goal is to leave the collection in better shape than we found it…not just for this generation, but for generations to come,” says Stephen. “This new work space will help us with that goal.”