Conservation Portfolio Home
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Experiments with Hinging and Hinge Removal for Works of Art on Paper, Summer 2013, Heugh-Edmondson Conservation Services
This exercise was designed by Nancy Heugh in order to introduce students/interns to the variable responses of different types of papers to the application of paste.
Part one of the experiment was applying two-three hinge strips to each type of paper. Kizukishi paper was used for all the hinges as a constant.
Part two of the experiment consisted of removal of one of the applied hinges using controlled application of moisture.
As Nancy explained, hinge application and removal becomes a routine and vital task in a museum that is largely exhibition-driven. From this exercise I learned that it is a task that requires just as much sensitivity and hand skills as any other conservation treatment.
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Workspace during Part One of the exercise
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Sufficient weight while the hinge is drying can help prevent cockling. The film canisters are filled with lead shot.
Sometimes it is also helpful to flip the object after a few hours of drying under weight and weight the hinge from the opposite side.
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Overall, I found that in my first attempt I applied too much paste and needed to paste off more. Excessive paste led to a halo around the hinge that could be seen from the recto. However, with the medium weight papers the amount of paste used was sufficient.
I also overlapped the hinges more than necessary. The less overlap (no more than 1/3 of the hinge) the less opportunity for cockling.The easiest papers to work with were the kizukishi and the medium weight western paper. However, in terms of removal the kizukishi was the hardest because the support and the hinge were the same material and had fused together so seamlessly that it was difficult to tell them apart. In the end, the paper was skinned during the removal. Even having a similar color substrate proved challenging during removal.
The most challenging papers were glassine, gampi, and permadur as they responded drastically to the moisture. The hinge released nicely from the permadur. With very little moisture it was easy to peel away with a swab.
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Permadur
Notice outline of hinge as paper shrunk around the paste.
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Glassine (left) and bond paper (right)
The bond paper exhibited more cockling than I had anticipated.
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Gampi (left) and medium weight Japanese paper (right)
Notice where the medium weight Japanese paper support was skinned in the bottom left corner while removing hinge of similar color.
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Kitikata (left) and kizukishi (right)
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MM1 (machine made mulberry paper)
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Medium weight western paper
No cockling; this was the easiest paper to hinge and the removal process was not that difficult either.
