Read through the entire thread over the past couple of days. Incredible stuff, Charlie.
I don't have the space or time to do any linen backing myself, but I will have to at some point. Building all those tables and frames is right up my alley.
How does the conservation part of the process work exactly? You mention washing, de-acidifying and so on. I'm just trying to imagine a recipe like...
1. Place poster on sheet of mylar (or do you sandwich between two sheets?) and soak in water (de-ionized, right?)
2. Then you let it dry?
3. Place the poster in de-acidifying solution (is this the calcium hydroxide?)
4. Repeat steps 1 and 2
Is it something like that? Apologies for all the questions, the specificity of the process really interests me.
It all depends on my mood, the amount of alcohol in my system, whether the wife is cooking something good and so on...
But yeah there are a few tweaks that can be made but:
- Use mylar
- Sandwich poster with it
- Pull top mylar off
- Get the poster wet - Believe it or not I've discovered through academic papers that deionized isn't exactly the best as it can strip important stuff out of the poster... Purified that is slightly basic is acceptable.
- Wait (smooth out poster)
- Put mylar back on and flip
- Repeat
- Pull top mylar off
- Rinse (sometimes gunk just comes out without much effort; you can also wash with orvus - a poster mountain step that I don't always follow)
- Put mylar back on and flip
- Repeat
- Pull top mylar off
- Apply deacidification solution (restorer preference - I do use deionized to make this stuff CaOH; My mix the other day was 12.35 Ph)
- Put mylar back on and flip
- Repeat
- Wait (20 minutes or so - you can have a beer or go in and kiss the wife - I often use this time to prepare the masa and canvas)
- Pull top mylar off
- Rinse (sometimes a lot of brown/yellow crap comes out and I may repeat the above - that means it worked)
- Put mylar back on and flip
- Repeat
You can let it dry but I've found letting it dry makes the poster a bit brittle so IMO it is better to back straight away...
Hope this helps.