AIC's 44th Annual Meeting

New England’s winter of 2014/2015 brought a stunning build-up of snow to the region and the c. 1681 Old Ship Meeting House, a National Historic Landmark in Hingham, Massachusetts was not spared. Ice that formed at the exterior window heads melted and penetrated the wall surfaces resulting in dark staining at the impressive, original interior wooden timber frame members. When testing was initiated seven months following the initial damage, the stains proved to be intractable to simple water removal. Suspecting that this dark reddish staining consisted, at least in part, from aqeuous interactions with ferrous oxides, corrosion from the nongalvanized building nails, BCA designed and tested a custom gelled dual chelator cleaning approach. The procedure proved to be effective at significantly reducing the waterborne stains from the unfinished woodwork without causing any further damage. This presentation will discuss the properties and results of the cleaner BCA produced and utilized on the interior woodwork.