Teapot Repaired - Randall House Museum

August 19, 2014

I was asked to repair a broken teapot at Randall House museum after it had been broken in transit on a flight from Alberta.  A set of china had been carefully wrapped in bubble wrap and placed in a hard shell carry-on bag but, sadly, the teapot split into two large pieces.  The good news is that the break was relatively clean and given that they were larger pieces were easier to handle for repair.

I would recommend that china and other fragile artifacts be packaged in layers of foam and tightly secured in a hard shell case to avoid movement while being transported.   Foam can be carved to the shape of the artifact both on a bottom and top layer which can then be wrapped to prevent movement.

Firstly, a general statement - conservators are not restorers.  Restoring is a very specialized field requiring considerable training and experience.  For example, ceramics restoration would require a solid grounding in chemistry to understand glazing, painting, firing, and general analysis of the many materials used in creating a ceramic piece.  A restorer would fill cracks and do colour matching for the plain parts of the repair and the coloured parts.  Their work can usually produce results that would be able to render the break (fracture) invisible to the naked eye.  As you can imagine, this is a time consuming and expensive process and therefore is normally only undertaken where budget permits.

Secondly, conservators can do minor repairs such as putting this teapot back together without the crack filling and colour matching.  Conservation work is normally done with the caveat that the repairs are reversible and at least visible under a microscope.  These are ethical considerations in all conservation work.

Here is a photograph of the teapot prior to the repair work.

Randall House Teapot - before repair

Tools and materials used in this repair....exacto-knife, wooden skewer (sanded to a fine point), small soft brush, and HMG B72 adhesive.

Here are the steps I took in the repair of the teapot....

• photographs are taken before and after the work
• using a small, soft brush I carefully brushed along the break on both pieces over a sheet of paper to see if any smaller fragments came loose....none did....and to make sure no loose pieces would hamper fitting the larger pieces together,
• apply a minimum amount of conservation grade adhesive along the break,
• hold the pieces together for at least two minutes by hand in this case but larger clamps can be used in some cases.  The adhesive used is flexible for two minutes and then hardens allowing for minor adjustments.
• carefully remove excess adhesive with an exacto-knife all along the join, inside and out.  The knife is held at a very flat angle to just pick away without doing further damage.
• examine the join by moving the exacto-knife from side to side at various points along the break to determine the evenness of the join.  If necessary, the join can be reversed and redone if not satisfactory.  The adhesive used can be softened with a hairdryer at a low setting.

Here is a photograph of the teapot with the excess adhesive and a gap showing.  The break did have a very few of the gaps and was otherwise a very clean break.  The small and minimal bits of adhesive were carefully removed with the exacto-knife.

Randall House Teapot - before clean-up

With this repair done the teapot can be put in a display with proper lighting and placed in such a way that the break would be either not visible or essentially invisible.  The break and repair along with this description now become part of the history of the artifact.

Broken Bottle Reassembled - December 23, 2013

December 23, 2013

This year I participated in a class at Acadia University (Wolfville, NS CANADA) that did a fall archaeological dig at Prescott House.  I have been commissioned to do conservation work on some of the finds from this important dig and will document that effort over the next few blog entries.  The dig was on a very small area alongside a gravel driveway near the maintenance shed.  We know from historical records that there were several outbuildings and our archaeologist/instructor chose an easily accessible area that had some ceramics and metals poking through the ground.  One of the hopes was that an outbuilding wall would be found which could prompt additional archaeological digs.  We uncovered thousands of pieces of ceramics, bottle and window glass, hand made nails and various other metals, and bricks.  And we did find what appears to be a structure's wall which was a combination of brick and stone.

All 18 pieces of bottle found at Prescott House.

The first object I chose to work on was a bottle that was broken into 18 pieces of various sizes (see first photograph) yet enough of it was recovered to attempt to put it back together with conservation grade adhesive.  Why go to the bother of putting it back together?  It will allow us to take measurements, study its shape, and clues for its usage which will all help in identifying manufacturer, dating, and identifying contents.  In some cases bottles of the same contents underwent changes over time such as addition of markings.  This bottle has embossed lettering along both narrow sides which will become clearer when put together.

Tools used: scalpel, toothbrush, magnifying glass
Materials used: distilled water, B72 Restoration Adhesive

Careful washing and brushing of the pieces in distilled water will assist in reconstruction because it will remove loose dirt and other material buildup that would interfere with fitting the pieces together.  After careful drying it is best to do a "mock up" of putting the pieces together to determine the correct order.  I used very small pieces of scotch tape to hold the pieces together temporarily to see how they look when fitted together.  It is best to put some smaller pieces together first and then fit onto larger pieces.  Sometimes we actually draw out the shapes and number the actual pieces (using a non-permanent very fine marker) in the order in which they are to be reassembled.  This was not necessary in this instance since the 18 pieces were relatively easy to reassemble with only one exception.  I had a very small piece with no special markings that I was not able to fit anywhere.

I used a toothbrush to clean up the pieces, a scalpel to carefully remove excess adhesive and test connections, and a magnifying glass to verify connections.  By testing connections I mean that I used the scalpel to run along the fitted pieces to mark sure they were as close fitting as possible.  There were a few instances were I had to reset pieces so the scalpel was used to careful scrape away any excess adhesive.  One of the benefits of the B72 Restoration Adhesive is that it remains tacky for two minutes to allow for minor adjustment of fitting the pieces.  It is also reversible by applying heat greater than 100 degrees F.  It will not yellow and is relatively non-toxic although should not be used in a confined space and avoid skin contact.  It is widely used in conservation work for most materials except leather.

Of particular interest is the embossed lettering on the two narrow sides which have only one letter missing on one and a partial letter on the the other: one can be interpreted as "MOTHER GRAVES" and the other as "WORM EXTERMINATOR".  This is a known medicine from the 1880's to early 1920's manufactured by Northrup & Lymon in Toronto and used in the treatment of worms in humans, particularly children.  This series of  photographs show the reassembled bottle from all sides.

Reassembled bottle - front

Reassembled bottle - back

Embossed letters  "OTHER GRAVES"

Embossed  letters "ORM EXTERMINATOR"

Historical Note and Family Connection

Charles Prescott completed the building of Prescott House, a magnificent Georgian style house in 1815 and proceeded to make a serious contribution to horticulture and specifically the apple industry in the province.  He introduced over 100 varieties of apples among other endeavours.  But, for me, this has a family connection due to one variety he established called the Bourassa apple.  Unfortunately, we have not found any more information beyond the fact it was grown in Quebec from 1750 and up to 1880 when no more information is available.  We have not found the family connection yet either but, we will continue to search for it.  If anyone has information that would help us locate this apple variety (is it still grown?) or any of its history please leave a comment.