TIL I'd been cleaning artifacts wrong for years

Was scrubbing pottery sherds with a stiff brush at a field school in Arizona until the supervisor walked over and showed me the microscopic scratch marks I was leaving. Felt like an idiot that I'd damaged 30+ pieces before anyone said something. Anyone else have a method they thought was fine but turned out to be ruining stuff?

3 comments

3 Comments

sean_barnes2413d ago

Yeah that hurts. Soft brushes only for anything old.

-1

mileslane13d agoMost Upvoted

Heard a guy on a restoration podcast say even some microfiber cloths can be too rough on old finishes, they microscratch the surface over time. He was talking about using those soft, lint-free cotton pads instead, the kind you'd use for cleaning glasses or camera lenses. I switched to those for my old wooden radio cabinet and it definitely feels safer. Also read that you should blow dust off first with a low-pressure air duster or soft brush before you even touch the surface, so you're not grinding grit into it. That part made a lot of sense to me.

walker.julia12d ago

Oh man, that dusting tip is the real deal! I've been telling people that for years, you'd be surprised how much microscopic grit just sits on an old finish waiting to ruin your day. @sean_barnes24 is spot on about the soft brushes too, I ruined a nice little oak chair once because I was too impatient to grab the right tool. But here's the thing that gets me - what about those old shellac finishes? I had a family heirloom table from the 1920s and even the softest cotton pad left a weird haze on it after a few wipes. Ended up learning the hard way that some of those old finishes are so delicate you're better off just blowing the dust off and leaving them alone unless you really know what you're doing. Makes you wonder if we're all overthinking this whole cloth thing when a gentle puff of air is really all they need.