Wednesday, February 17, 2010

For months we’ve looked at the Jesse Jackson banner trying to figure out what to do with it. It was obvious from inspecting the banner that part of the damage was from folding the banner and not from the flood. Once repaired or at least stablized we didn’t want to fold it back up. The ideal would be to store it rolled rather than flat. We thought it was too fragile to withstand a tight roll. Purchasing a tube with an 8″ or larger diameter would cost $150 or more.

I took what I thought was a brilliant idea to our conservator, Gary Frost — building our own tube using multiple layers of thin archival tan board around a 5 gallon paint can. He suggested that buying a cement forming tube would be cheaper and easier. So we did.

The tube was, of course, acidic. We chose to line the roll with book cloth which gives a double barrier of adhesive and cloth between the banner and acidic tube. Other type liners could have just as easily been used — several layers of Mylar, polyethylene plastic sheeting, Tyvek, or heavy-weight acid-free paper.

Gary cut the tube down to size and then Linda and Caitlin lined it. As you can see, getting the cloth on smoothly is really a two-person job!