150 years ago, these men served aboard the ironclad USS Monitor.   10 years ago, NOAA and the U.S. Navy recovered Monitor‘s revolving gun turret and transported it to The Mariners’ Museum for conservation and exhibit.   33 days from now, on December 30, this could be you inside Monitor‘s gun turret:   Want to [...]

This past week the 30,000 gallon tank containing Monitor’s steam engine was drained for a key milestone in the conservation of this unique artifact. The purpose for the tank drain was the installation of a new support system under the engine that will enable the eventual disassembly of  the object.  Up to this week, the engine which [...]

This past week, the Monitor conservation staff began screening concretion and corrosion products removed from the interior of the turret over the last 10 weeks (see previous posts and video links on the main page). As with any archaeological excavation, we want to make sure that even small objects and fragments are recovered for future [...]

Jeff Johnston at the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary just forwarded this information to me.  I’m not sure how Google’s auto mailing system works, but somehow it decided to send an advertising postcard to the sanctuary office that was addressed to William Jeffers, Monitor‘s second appointed commander! I hope Google doesn’t get too upset if he doesn’t [...]

This is our 100th post, and it’s an important one!  The Virginia Collections Initiative in conjunction with the Virginia Association of Museums is once again generating its list of “Virginia’s Top Ten Endangered Artifacts”.  http://www.vatop10artifacts.org/ USS Monitor‘s revolving gun turret is on the list of nominees for 2011, and we hope to be selected for [...]

After the removal of remaining roof stanchions on the turret (see previous post below), conservation staff shifted their work efforts to its interior.  Over the last several weeks we have been using an assortment of pneumatic and other hand tools to remove remaining concretion and loose corrosion products embedded in between the roof rails and [...]

The Mariners’ Museum and Monitor Conservation Project were fortunate to attract the attention of John Tierney and the New York Times.  John visited the museum on two recent occasions and published an article about the Monitor in the NY Times on August 8.  The article coincides with the 150th anniversary of the publication (in the NY [...]

It was Friday afternoon and Conservator Elsa Sangouard did not say a word; she didn’t have to say anything.  Her smile told the whole story.  Elsa and Gary Paden, the Objects Handler for the USS Monitor Conservation Project, had just successfully removed a beautiful and shiny copper alloy tallow cup from Monitor’s 25-ton steam engine [...]

Time flies… the last blog update about the wool coat was April 30th of 2010! Since then, a significant part of the garment’s conservation treatment was completed. The coat is now clean, dry and thoroughly documented! Prior to freeze-drying, each one of the 138 pieces of wool were drawn for the record as well as [...]

Last week, treatment began on a large fragment of cast iron flooring from  Monitor‘s engine room. The fragment was discovered in situ during large scale deconcretion efforts on the engine in December 2010.  In the images below, you can see the fragment in place on the engine being supported with straps while concretion was removed to separate it from [...]