This state-of-the-art facility provides visitors with a view of the delicate process of preserving history. The conservation facility offers visitors:
View the USS Monitor‘s vibrating side-lever steam engine. The engine is a composite artifact, meaning that it is composed of many different material types including wrought iron, cast iron, copper and copper alloys, rubber, and glass.View camera image
Catch a glimpse of the USS Monitor‘s revolving gun turret. The 120-ton wrought iron turret is visible whether the tank is filled with 90,000 gallons of treatment solution or if conservators are inside the turret performing treatment activities.View camera image
This webcam shows the USS Monitor‘s two XI-inch Dahlgren shell guns and their gun carriages. Conservators have been busy disassembling the 3,200-pound gun carriages, which have been rotated into their original upright positions.View camera image
Camera image refreshes automatically every 12 seconds
Conservators at The Mariners’ Museum are currently deconcreting and disassembling components of USS Monitor‘s 20-ton steam engine and steam condenser as part of an overall conservation plan. Conservators are also exposing original iron and copper alloy surfaces of these mechanical components to a highly alkaline desalination solution. Treatment activities will be ongoing for the next 20 years! This webcam will periodically switch views between the engine and condenser tanks depending on work being performed in each tank.
Watch history unfold before your eyes!
Camera image refreshes automatically every 12 seconds
Mariners’ Museum conservators are performing electrolysis and desalination of USS Monitor‘s 120-ton revolving gun turret. The 90,000 gallon treatment tank is filled with an alkaline solution of sodium hydroxide in reverse osmosis water to promote electrolysis and desalination. Treatment of the wrought iron gun turret is anticipated to take an additional 15 years before the turret will be stable enough to display in the Large Artifact Gallery of the Ironclad Revolution exhibit at the USS Monitor Center.
Watch history unfold before your eyes!
Camera image refreshes automatically every 12 seconds
This webcam shows Monitor‘s two XI-inch Dahlgren shell guns and gun carriages. The 7.5-ton guns are undergoing electrolytic reduction in sodium hydroxide solutions. Conservators are completely disassembling the 3,200-pound gun carriages, which have been 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 coming months and you may see conservators working on these artifacts!
Watch history unfold before your eyes!
