This is the fourth blog in our series on the railway plans. In the last part we explored how the plans are graded, which informs how our Conservator approaches the work. Due to the large number of plans a volunteer, Clare, was taken on to help conserve those plans graded two. These plans mostly require cleaning with some minor paper repairs, as well as flattening and repackaging. Here Clare discusses her role.
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I am the Conservation Volunteer at Dorset History Centre, and have been working on railway plans that date from 1824. These plans have been stored rolled, which makes them very difficult to treat as they need weights to hold them in place whilst I work.
First they need to be cleaned. To do this, the page is brushed with a goat hair brush to remove any dust and surface dirt. It’s amazing how much dirt can be removed by doing this and sometimes a clean brush is needed after just cleaning the cover as it’s so grubby!
After all the pages have been brushed, the whole book is then cleaned with a smoke sponge to remove any ground-in deposits. A set of plans can take several hours to clean, especially if it’s a large thick book that has lots of pages and is very dirty; even the smaller ones can take up to an hour.
After a set of plans has been cleaned, they need any damage to be repaired. For this we use Japanese paper and wheat starch paste. First the edges are smoothed out to check they fit back together, and if a piece has broken off completely it is also placed back in at this stage. A piece of clear polyester sheet is placed over the tear and the Japanese paper is laid on top. Using a brush, water is used to mark out a repair piece on the Japanese paper, leaving a 5mm margin around the tear to give the repair strength. This repair piece is then carefully pulled away and you get a nice fluffy edge which is great, so the long fibres can grab onto the page.
Next, a piece of blotter and a sheet of woven polyester called Bondina are placed under the tear. It’s important that they are larger than the repair as the blotter soaks up the moisture and the Bondina is there to stop the repair sticking to the blotter. Next the wheat starch paste is applied to the Japanese repair piece. This is done on a piece of blotter to so as not to make it too wet. The repair piece is then placed over the tear and another piece of Bondina and blotter are placed on top. Weights are used to help remove moisture and stop the paper from curling. When the repair is dry the excess Japanese paper is then trimmed.
On some of the plans the binding has come unstitched. If this has happened, it actually makes it a lot easier to clean and repair as pages can be separated and easily moved around, but the binding will then need to be re-sewn. The cord used for this gets very easily tangled, so working with long lengths can be quite difficult!
I have really enjoyed working on the plans. It’s great to be able to repair documents so that the public can access them. When a book of plans has been conserved and packaged, it’s really satisfying to see them flat and repaired and remember how they used to be.
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This is part four of an eight part series of blogs on the work we are doing to conserve the railway plans.
Part 1: Getting the Records Back on Track