Conservation of USS Monitor's Dahlgren Guns Webcam

USS Monitor's Dahlgren Guns

This webcam shows Monitor’s two XI-inch Dahlgren shell guns and gun carriages. The 8-ton guns are undergoing electrolytic reduction in sodium hydroxide solutions. Conservators are partially disassembling the 3,200-pound gun carriages, which were recently rotated to their original upright positions, to separate iron and copper alloy components from wood components for safe treatment. These four tanks are drained more frequently than the engine and turret tanks. Keep any eye out over the next two months and you may see conservators lifting a gun carriage from its treatment tank with the lab’s overhead crane!