preserving relics

Hi Beua,

good topic and a very important one indeed! Unfortunately I have seen many good finds that were ruined either because they did  not preserved right or even got destroyed by wrong preservation. This counts true both for detecing as well as garage finds. The worst thing that comes to my mind is taking e.g. an old Japanese sword to the grinder in order to resharpen it and thus ruining it for good.

So to start with let's choose a material. The finds that deserve preservation the most are iron ones. They should first be put into destiled water for an extended periode of time to remove any salt from them.

Regards,

Christian

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Yes, destilled water is always the first step. Sometimes it may have to sit there for months but it will remove all the bad rust - of course one has to regularly change the destilled water. Another good ways of rust removal is the Electrolysis.

Also a big no no is using toothpaste on (silver) coins as it is abrasive. Copper, and bronce coins are best cleaned using dentists picks or scalpel under a binocular mricroscope while silver coins can be put into salt acid wrapped in aluminium foil. I will have to look through my finds if I have some before and after pictures.

best wishes,

Christian

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yea ridge runner me too I find toothpicks are good at getting into the detail of a piece, they wont harm the piece because they are so soft but sure does take a lot of toothpicks and time to do a small ammount of cleaning... I also have a "tumbler" that uses wallnut shells. Iv never been brave (or stupid) enouph to shove a relic in there. I should try it out some time with a rusty nail or somthing I dont care about. does anyone know about the really expensive water viabration cleaning? I think it works by viabrating the water at an extreamly high frequency. Iv heard thats great for removing rust too?

also another question... where is the best place to buy an electrolysis machine and how does it exactly work? 

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		Quote:			Posted by acepro
	yea ridge runner me too I find toothpicks are good at getting into the detail of a piece, they wont harm the piece because they are so soft but sure does take a lot of toothpicks and time to do a small ammount of cleaning... I also have a "tumbler" that uses wallnut shells. Iv never been brave (or stupid) enouph to shove a relic in there. I should try it out some time with a rusty nail or somthing I dont care about. does anyone know about the really expensive water viabration cleaning? I think it works by viabrating the water at an extreamly high frequency. Iv heard thats great for removing rust too? also another question... where is the best place to buy an electrolysis machine and how does it exactly work?

You can get an ultrasonic from any good Gun shop or coin dealers but the gun shop will be cheaper,

hope that helps AU

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		Quote:			Posted by acepro
	yea thanks! I think the ones me and my dad were looking at were a few hundred dollars, are they worth it?

Yes because you can use them for house hold items too for cleaning modern coins I use modern cleaners but some of them turn copper coins pinkish orange if you leave them in too long so I keep and eye on them and when they are dry I give then a Ride on my Merry Go Round, (Bullet Tumbler) and they come out New
But the Ultrasonic will clean chains rings and other fine detailed work so yes it is worth it especially if something is delicate,

AU

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