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 the engine bed.

While removing concretion to separate the fragment, it became clear that the flooring had been made to fit the contour of the engine bed. Further deconcretion of the fragment exposed a thick finely curved edge on the casting.

With inital deconcretion completed, the fragmet was connected to an electrolytic reduction system to aid in the removal of salt from within the object and additonal concretion/corrosion on the surface of the object over the next couple of months.