Campo with a coating?

[ALEX]

Hi,thought i would treat myself to a new 16lb campo,spoke to the guy,told him i want it stable without any clear coatings!It turned up today,very impressed,looks stable,got it for a good price,just one thing,it looks like its been clear lacquered!To be honest it dont bother me that much,its not that noticeable,just a niddle.Does anyone know how to remove it,whether i should,maybe im over reacting,it is a very nice piece! regards Alex

[Barwellian]

Hi Alex,

I have several campos up tho about 17kg and they are all unstable to some extent in out climate even kept in a low humidity cabinet. I have treated mine several times over the years to combat rust....electrolysis, various coatings, etc and they still slowly rust. When they were dug up they would have had a thick natural coating of shale and rust and that would have been removed and then they would be treated. If yours is black then that is an antirust treatment and coating, plus probably oil or laquer. Regmaglypts can be present but they are often pseudo ones caused by weathering rather than ablation due to its age.

I intend to use the sodium hydroxide treatment on mine next....but you may be lucky and have one of the more stable ones....I should wait for a while and see what happens. If you just keep it out in room with average humidity for this country my bet is that it will rust eventually. A regular application of oil will combat it to some extent...just depends on the amount chlorides still present wihin.

Still the best value large iron to get though....it will outlast you even if it rusts.

Show us some photos.

Cheers,

Graham

[ALEX]

Thanks,i have had one for several years that didnt have a coating and just used oil on it,thats been fine,just prefer them without coatings.

[Matt Smith]

Acetone should remove the coating with ease.

[ALEX]

Spoke to the guy i bought it off,he said that they arnt coated,it just looks that way due to the cleaning process,im not sure.I may try acetone on a small area,ive heard of people using varnish stripper.

[MeteoritesEire]

can we have a look?

I've just done the sodium hydroxide treatment on 3 of mine.Videos on YT http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG_xdSspmMs part 1

[Barwellian]

How long were you leaving the campos reacting for. I have done the same but using washing soda....slightly safer but much slower as less caustic....kept the process going for around a week.

The bigger the campo the longer it takes I am told.

I think the method used by museums for iron artefacts just steeps the objects in Caustic soda for many months...rather than using aluminium to get the galvanic process going.

Peter Davidson has co written a paper about the conservation of the Muonionalusta meteorite at Edinburgh where he states that the meteorite was immersed for 7 months in an alkaline sulphite solution (0.5M NaOH, 0.5M Na2SO3 in deionised water), following the methodology developed by Pearson and North (1978).

His paper is not published as far as I know so it would be up to Peter too let the forum see the whole paper.

I believe it will go on show soon and it's condition will be monitored regularly to check how well the process has worked.

[MeteoritesEire]

very interesting Graham

I only repeated the process about 4 times and changed the foil and I fear it hasn't been enough.

The campo's look ok as I put a layer of gun oil on them but I'm going to monitor them for a while before putting them up for sale.

If Peter reads this I'd love to see that report

[msg-meteorites]

I had a small whole Campo individual of 500g or so and had constant problems with it weeping and rust flaking off. I used the method above but was wary of using caustic soda from the supermarket so used pure sodium hydroxide and ethanol alcohol. I wrapped it in aluminium foil and left it for a couple of weeks changing the foil quite a few times. After this treatment the Campo has never weeped or rusted once. I dont know whether pure sodium hydroxide is worth it or even how pure caustic soda is that you buy from the supermarket but the process certainly worked!

Cheers

Martin

[ALEX]

I gave it a good wipe down at the weekend with some acetone,then with alcohol(not the kind i was drinking at the time)I have to say it does look better,looks more like the one id owned for years with no bother.Im going to keep a close eye on it over the next few months,hopefully if im lucky it will be one of the more stable ones,if not then im moving onto stage 2!Thanks for your advice,il get some pics on this week regards Alex