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What
is the most damaging to things to your collection?
That was the question proposed by Mr. David Scott, Head Curator
of Metals at the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), which is
part of the Getty Museum here in Los Angeles. The GCI is the
research and preservation arm of the Getty, working with paintings,
sculptures and art objects dating back thousands of years. Mr.
Scott oversees the GCI's metals department, where research is
conducted into examining trace minerals found in paint pigments.
The
reasons for this specific research was twofold: One, to find
out the best way to preserve redlines and blisters, and two,
to find out more about the various effects the environment has
on these cars in general. Good News and Bad News:
Good news: If you follow some general guidelines, you can preserve |
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your
cars quite well for a long time. The bad news is that you can
also do a lot of things wrong and have some rapidly deteriorating
cars in no time at all.
Moisture:
Unless you live in a vacuum, there will be some degree of humidity
in the air, which is constantly at work on the metal and will
eventually dull any unpainted surface as well as leading to
corrosion. If you live in the south or the eastern parts of
the US, this can be a major problem.
Organic Acids, Airborne Pollutants, Ultraviolet light.
Blister pak Storage:
Keeping a car inside a blister is not the optimal way of preserving
a car for future generations. First of all, the air inside the
blister is NOT akin to an airtight time capsule there's plenty
of breathing that occurs thru the cardboard of the blister.
Plus, depending on the amount of pulp in the cardboard and the
fun toxins in the glue that holds the bubble to the card, you
have your own miniature laboratory of gasses and acids at work.
Mr. Scott recommends that if you do keep cars in blisters, to
store the blisters in a container with silica and carbon to
absorb as much of the contaminates as possible. |
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