Last week we were able to remove the other cap square of the carriage along with the nine bolts that were maintaining it. Another significant copper alloy part removed! See Gary below having almost removed the cap square in the left image and the surface underneath it once removed, on the right. Our [...]
Of the approximately 1600 artifacts recovered from the USS Monitor, 1/4 of them have been conserved. Many but not all of the 400+ conserved artifacts are now on display in the USS Monitor Center at The Mariners’ Museum. So what do we do with the artifacts that aren’t currently on display at the museum? The museum [...]
Recently I had the opportunity to visit the memorial of one of the brave sailors who was lost when the Monitor sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras on December 31st, 1862. Jacob Nicklis, son of William Nicklis, a prominent tailor in Buffalo, New York had re-enlisted as an ordinary seaman in the US Navy [...]
Monitor’s two gun carriages are the focus of a new disassembly project. The gun carriages are composed of copper alloys, wrought iron and wood. The iron and copper components are in contact, which causes galvanic corrosion. Contact between metals of different nobility will generate, over time, the protection of the more noble metal to the [...]
The nutguard discussed a few weeks ago has now been removed from its desalination bath. It was dried under a fan overnight then coated with a tannic acid solution to stabilize the surface. It was necessary to carefully scrape away numerous large flakes of rust from all over the surfaces of the object before the [...]
Cast iron, like steel and wrought iron, is an alloy consisting primarily of iron and carbon but has a carbon content usually in the range of 2- 4%, which appears as flakes of graphite intermixed within the material. Commonly, when cast iron is submerged in a marine environment, the iron component corrodes away, leaving behind [...]
Chris Daley, Historical Clothing Supervisor of Jamestown/Yorktown, visited us last Tuesday to give his expert advice on the wool coat recovered from the turret in 2002. Chris was amazed to see how well preserved the coat is and how much of it remains. We now know that about 80% of the garment has survived (in [...]
This oil cup was discovered in 2001 in a mass of concretion withother various tools. These tools are most likely the spilled contents of a tool box and included different sized hammer heads, a small oil can, a lead ingot, and glass from a lantern. The mass was concreted to a large copper alloy [...]
Buffalo, NY: April 4, 2010 Success! After letting the molten iron cool and solidify, we cut the metal strapping and began to break open the sand molds. It was an amazing feeling as replica Worthington pump damping piston cylinder heads and valve chest covers began to emerge from the molds, just as they would have [...]
Buffalo, New York April 10, 2010 The day of the spring iron pour at Buffalo State College is finally here! After nearly a week of preparation, the iron furnace named ‘Betty’ was lit in the morning and Will and other experienced iron casters fed in measured charges of 7 lbs. of coke and 50 lbs. [...]
