Our studio well-lit both with natural light and colour-balanced ‘daylight’ lighting to enable precise colour matching when retouching. The windows all have Ultra Violet filters (renewed in 2021) to protect the artworks while we are working on them.
Over the years we have improved our facilities buying, and often designing, new equipment to enable us to further improve our work. Our custom built equipment includes:
- two large washing sinks for wet treatments,
- a humidification chamber to enable us to relax paper in a very controlled manner,
- a high pressure suction plate for local treatment of foxing and the removal of old adhesive stains such as those left by aged Sellotape,
- a book suction wedge to enable us to treat foxing, tape stains and water staining within books without removing the binding,
- a small suction plate to enable us to treat artworks attached to stretchers or strainers without detaching them first,
- a large fume cupboard to enable us to use solvents to remove modern synthetic adhesives without risking our health.
- mobile benches that can be configured to work on unusually large or long objects.
Some of the above equipment was built for to our own specification by the Department of Engineering of the University of Cambridge.
Other equipment includes:
- a hand-held X-ray fluorescence spectrometer for analysing paper and pigments,
- framing equipment to enable the creating of bespoke picture frames,
- binocular and stereo zoom microscopes,
- mount, panel and board choppers for efficient cutting of mounts and board for picture frames,
- a copy stand for the accurate recording of condition before and after treatment,
- large suction tables for lining pastels and washing paper with water sensitive areas,
- a heated vacuum press for lining artworks when neither water-based or solvent-based adhesives can be used,
- a polyester welder for creating custom size polyester pockets,
- hot air blower for softening pressure-sensitive adhesives prior to their removal,
- precisely controlled heated spatulas with a range of silver tips that conduct heat more efficiently than more commonly used metals.
We have a darkroom for examination using Ultra Violet, raking light and transmitted light. This is also useful for Infra-Red and UV photography.
When ordering solvents we purchase purer grades which have lower levels of non-volatile impurities. This cost us more but is important as tiny amount of these non-volatile impurities are left behind in paper when solvents are used. Some of these, such as iron and copper will catalyse the decay of cellulose (the main component of paper). Similarly, we use a carefully selected analytical grade of calcium hydroxide for de-acidification. This has 1.03 parts per million of iron and just 0.3 parts per million of copper. In contrast, the cheaper GPR grade contains up to 500 parts per million of iron.
We have also built up a good collection of blank sheets of historic paper to enable us to find a good match when filling losses in artworks. This helps us to achieve a better result at a lower price.
Security is excellent, with 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on-site security (the studio has been accepted by the National Museums Security Advisor for Government indemnity).