Last week got off to a great start as we drained the condenser tank for the first time in two years. This was the second draining of a tank since I arrived at The Mariners’ Museum and I was looking forward to getting back into one of the “big” tanks. After draining, rinsing, and disassembling [...]

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 [...]

Continuing from the post made on November 30th……I know you have all been waiting! Once the wax copies had been completed at the Mariners’ Museum, they were packed up and transported to the foundry at Buffalo state College. Upon arrival, the casting flasks (wooden boxes) were setup around each of the waxes and fine sand [...]

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 [...]

   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 [...]

This is a nice shot by Jason from photography of the three recently conserved Dahlgren gun tools: a sponge on the left, a Robinson worm in the middle, and a shot ladle on the right. Handling the objects during the photo session reminded us of how fit the gunners had to be to do their [...]