Much work has been carried out on the object along with several interesting discoveries since the initial blog post about the artifact on March 15, 2010. The best thought at the current time is that the artifact is some kind of swing valve. After several weeks of the object having gone through electrolytic reduction, the [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Hey folks, Josiah here. I’m relatively new to the Monitor Conservation Project, on a yearlong fellowship to help with all of the work to be done here and to learn about marine archaeological conservation as I go along. One of the most interesting things that I am learning from working here is the logistics of [...]
The Monitor’s clock movement was in amazingly good condition after 139 years in saltwater, due to many of the parts being made of high quality brass and copper nickel alloys. The use of nickel in some of the components was verified by elemental analysis performed at the College of William and Mary materials characterization laboratory [...]
The Mariners’ Museum is once again hosting the Battle of Hampton Roads Weekend this Saturday, March 6! Drop by the museum at 10:00am to see costumed interpretors firing cannon (so loud it shakes the building), museum and NOAA experts giving lectures on the USS Monitor, CSS Virginia, and artifact conservation, listen to Civil War music, and participate in children’s [...]
Inside the Monitor’s turret there are a series of thin wrought iron plates that covered the rows of nuts and bolts that held together the turret armor. The purpose of these plates was to prevent the nuts from breaking off of the bolts and flying around inside the turret when the armor took a hard [...]
A while ago, conservators, archaeologists, shipyard employees, and a corrosion expert removed a core sample from Monitor‘s revolving gun turret armor. Although long-term analysis is ongoing, yesterday we utilized a portable XRF analyzer to perform additional elemental analysis. We’ll let you know what our results are after we have a chance to review them. In [...]
Today was a major milestone in the effort to conserve USS Monitor’s amazing artifacts. Almost 147 years after the iconic ironclad sank, conservators rotated the port gun carriage to its original upright position. USS Monitor’s two custom-built gun carriages have been upside down since the ironclad sank on December 31, 1862. The gun carriages were [...]
