News - Monthly Archives: August 2016

RRC metal conservator, Julia Tauber, cleaning a bronze memorial plaque at Charterhouse School, Surrey.

The care and conservation of memorials has been a hot topic in conservation during the centenary of the First World War.  Having worked on memorials of all types in the past, RRC was pleased to be able to assist Charterhouse School, Surrey with the conservation of 58 memorial plaques.

The majority of the plaques are in bronze and range in date over the last 150 years.  The conservation work consisted of cleaning the plaques to remove all residues and previous wax coating. Active corrosion was then removed manually with fine wire wool and a hot tinted microcrystalline wax applied to unify the patina and provide a protective coating for the future.

Before (top) and after conservation work on the bronze memorial plaque to George Mallory, the mountaineer who took part in the first three British expeditions to Everest.

A wall of showing some of the memorial plaques, all of the work was undertaken on-site at Charterhouse.

The RRC conservation team recently undertook the restoration of gilt chippendale style mirror that had fallen from the wall of a private residence due to the failure of old fixings.  Miraculously, the glass mirror survived the fall, the giltwood frame, however, was not so lucky.  The type of damage the frame sustained can be seen in the images above, on the left.

The team at RRC meticulously pieced the frame, numbering close to 100 fragments, back together.  Areas of loss were filled, and recarved where necessary, and the repairs gilded and coloured to match the original finish in a process that took over two months.

The extensive damage to the frame meant that it could no longer support the weight of the large piece of mirror glass so, with the assistance of the RRC Exhibitions team, a discreet steel supporting frame was produced to take the weight of the glass and transfer it to the wall.  On completion, the mirror was reinstalled by our team, in it’s original position, as shown above on the right.