It's been fun to watch this tread.
I was wondering if your had been checking in. Glad you have been...
It's also nice to see that you got an appreciation for we do everyday all day long.
Oh god yes. When I started I thought "They just slap the poster on linen and make 100 bucks!" I really can't imagine trying to support myself or others doing this everyday. Engineering is much easier! I sit back tell people what to do check and make sure they are doing it right... (that sounds familiar
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So from everything I've seen here and everything said. This is my best recommendation to you. Since you seem Hell bent on doing this and there is no turning back now.
Before you start plowing through your better paper and potentially down the road, others. I would strongly suggest hands on training with a pro.
Do you have any recommendations or persons in mind; Canada is a long way away but I would make the trip...
On the conservation side, you need to know how to gauge the paper, calibrate the baths, knowing the strength of chemicals. Using Bleach is one of the most traumatic things you can do to paper. So wash and wash bleach and bleach at this stage will most likely be more damaging than good. That is just one of a myriad when it comes to the conservation side.
I have decided to wash with orvus and CT before the CaCOS3 bath since the CT reacts better with lower PH so if I remove the acidity the effectiveness of the CT goes down (am I understanding this correctly?). The Orvus or "wash" works rather well to remove dirt I saw this with my own eyes on the Thunderbolt & Lightfoot poster. I plan to continue to use this unless you have a better agent to lift dirt. It is funny you mention conservation I was reading the other day that some restorers use fixative; that is a no-no right?
We are both talking about the Chloramine T as "bleach"... I am not pouring clorox on them.
On the restoration side. That always starts of with a properly backed poster. When the poster have dried for a few days. Close your eyes, run your hand/fingers all across the poster. Is the poster completely flush or can you feel the folds?? Reason I say this, you mention that you want to sand the folds and then air brush. This would be totally wacky and wrong. If you sand the folds which are already broken, you would have eight piece of paper on linen rather than a complete poster.
Actually that poster and fold was due to my ignorance going from soaking to flattening and not understanding that the front of the poster should be just as wet as the back of the poster before you try to flatten it. It was also a more modern poster. My first from the mid 60s had very little fold issues. I very much rectified this error on the past two posters... I have also noticed that if I run the teflon tool down the seems prior to the tightening the fold virtually disappear. I also observed that if I stand the poster up straight away that the folds tend to come back most likely due to gravity pulling the wet poster down. I now prop them up horizontally on painters pyramids the dry for 6 to 8 hours before placing vertically. I also noticed that if I wet the back of the poster down a few times while it dries to poster comes out much nicer and less wavy.
However, I can still feel and see the folds to some degree but not much more than my mind telling me one should be there.
I hope this has helped and that you take my recommendation.
I would love to take your recommendation but I have no idea where to receive training; I guess it would be paper conservation training versus movie poster conservation training. Right? University with a Library Science degree?
