After a successful season of hands on work removing concretion from the Monitor’s Turret, conservators have cleaned the tank fitted anodes for electrolytic reduction, and added 90,000 gallons of water purified by reverse osmosis.   When the electrolyte had been added, everything was ready to begin active desalination and start the process of removing [...]

Last week Eric travelled to Annandale, Virginia to talk with eighty five 4th graders at Canterbury Woods Elementary School School about conservation of the USS Monitor at The Mariners’ Museum.  The students were enthusiastic and already very knowledgeable about the Monitor, the CSS Virginia, and the Battle of Hampton Roads thanks to recent studies of [...]

During the past five months the Monitor’s engine has been in electrolytic reduction treatment to reduce corrosion and remove chloride salts.   Analysis of the sodium hydroxide electrolyte solution has shown that the concentration of chloride in the tank had reached 65 ppm (parts per million), meaning that this amount of salt has been removed from [...]

Last month, Eric gave a lecture on the conservation of the USS Monitor at The British Museum in London, England.  The talk was held at the Department of Conservation and Scientific Research and was well attended by staff.   This was a great opportunity to share conservation challenges and successes with our colleagues in the UK, [...]

Wednesday has been a good day for Worthington disassembly for the last couple of weeks!  Last Wednesday, Gary, Eric and Will used a hydraulic press and a new tool made from recycled aluminum to press out the brass cylinder liners and iron retaining rings from both port and starboard Worthington pumps.   In the last Worthington [...]

    On Wednesday, the removal of internal components from the Worthington pumps continued with the use of a hydraulic press and a tool specially made to apply even pressure to the brass water plungers in the pumps and push them out safely.  The port and starboard Worthingtons each had one of these plungers that [...]

 This has been a big week for disassembly of the Worthington pumps!  After long-term treatment in electrolytic reduction and removal of chlorides from the outer surfaces of the pumps, it’s time to remove as many of the internal moving parts as possible to make sure all surfaces are conserved.  This week Eric and Gary removed [...]

  Eric and Gerry continued work on disassembling the Port and Starboard Worthington pump steam chests on Monday.  The retaining nuts were removed from the valve damping pistons on both pumps using a digital torque wrench.  The port pump nut required 62.6 foot pounds of torque for removal, moderately tight, while on the starboard pump [...]

After removal from the port Worthington pump steam chest, the packing material mentioned in the last post was largely complete and retained the shape of the cavity it was pressed into.   Examination under a microscope at 100x magnification revealed that the individual fibers are translucent and have a twist or ‘convolution’.  There is also an [...]

  Last week Will and Eric were preparing to photograph the steam chest from Monitor’s port Worthington Pump.  This component houses the slide valve which fed steam from the boilers to drive the pump’s steam piston.  Noticing that the valve rod packing seal fitting appeared to have loosened up during treatment, they were able to [...]