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John Coffey asks:

I have an early 19th C. grandfather's clock in the shop
in which the paint on the face is flaking off. The entire
face has the typical crazing that you see but many areas
have loose or missing paint. My question is what are
the conservation-minded restorers out there using to
consolidate the paint?

This is a typical paint-over-steel face.

John Coffey
Locust Valley, NY






John Coffey follows up:

To follow up on the discussion on how to consolidate
paint on a steel clock face, I ended up using a thin
solution of B 72. I know the CA glue would work well
and on another clock face I might have used it but this is
an early 19 C. Federal clock and I wanted something
that could be retreated.

As to process, I tried to make the B72 as thick as
capillary action would allow. It wicked in pretty deeply
as you could see it ooze out of the cracks of loose
paint. I would then brush the B72 on and flood the
area.  I then used a piece of plastic film (drop cloth
plastic) as a diaphragm to manipulate as much resin into
the loose paint as I could. Initially I wiped off the excess
B72 but latter I just let it stay on the surface and would
remove the dry film later with solvent.  I found I got
better adhesion of the paint film that way. I clamped
the paint down with a combination of go-bars and
traditional clamps. I left the plastic 'diaphragm' followed
by a piece of leather, and then a masonite caul. I
worked on small discrete areas of loose paint rather
than try to clamp a large area.

Since the paint layer was quite thick I used Elmer's
Wood Filler to fill the losses which I have mentioned
before as a favorite of mine for filling. It is a blend of
platy talc and whiting in an acrylic resin. Even after it
dries it will remove with water. (For those who want the
full monty on Elmer's Wood Filler, the patent # is
4,345,044.) I inpainted with B72 and dry pigment:
white with a little blue and yellow. I tried to stay within
the repair area so as not to make a small repair a larger
one. I guess my kindergarten training to color within the
lines paid off! I mixed a small amount of what I thought
was a close match and primed the infills with that. Once
dry I could see how off I was and I refined the mix.
Unfortunately, matching an off-white took a lot of
refining with a result less than perfect. The inpainting got
away from me and more than once I wiped an hour's
worth of work off. Second tries always go better.
I flattened and burnished the repair area to match the
enamel using a burn-in knife and oil. Finally, since I had
not removed the grime on the surface, I was able to
'dirty' up my repair and did a little French polish with
the B72. Close ups of the photos will show some of the
repairs but when viewed from a normal distance they
looked OK; not as blotchy as the photo floods show.
Gotta love the 6 foot - 6 inch rule! I restored the
lettering with a combination of pigment in B72 for the
fat lines and India ink using a dip pen with a steel nib for
the fine ones.

To all who provided input, many thanks and even
though I didn't go the CA route I thought about it. If not
for the conservation approach, I would have used CA
and I think it would have given stronger results.

John Coffey
Locust Valley, NY









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