Friday 18 February 2010

MEDIA RELEASE

Rust never sleeps - new ways to care for large outdoors metal collections

National Services Te Paerangi brings experienced objects conservator George Bailey (Australia) to New Zealand for a series of specialist workshops. The two-day workshop titled ‘The conservation of large metal objects displayed outdoors’, will be presented in Whangarei, Waiouru, Blenheim and Taieri. The workshops will suggest new and improved materials and techniques for use in preserving outdoor metal objects such as tractors, engines, agricultural machinery and military equipment.

Many museums in New Zealand house industrial and farm machinery that lives outdoors. Being exposed to the elements inevitably accelerates the deterioration of metal collections, leading to corrosion, loss of flaking paint and seizure of moving parts. A two-day workshop will help museums understand why this happens and offer ways to preserve these important objects through improved treatments and safer display techniques.

These workshops will benefit representatives from museum, heritage, and iwi organisations who are responsible for the care and maintenance of a wide variety of metal artefacts held in trust.

George says, ‘I am hoping that the participants will leave these workshops with a better understanding of how the objects they are caring for deteriorate, a range of treatment methods to preserve the objects, and an increased ability to look at their objects in different ways, to find the history held within’. George will lead practical sessions, allowing hands on training for workshop participants.

Claire Nodder, Director of Whangarei Museum, says ‘The Whangarei Museum is especially excited to be hosting the workshop as, like many other heritage parks across the country, we have a number of items of large machinery on site which are in desperate need of conservation work. Many of these objects have been on display since the Park opened in the 1970s and the ravages of time are starting to show. The humid Northland environment compounds the problem of preserving the various pieces of industrial and farm machinery. There has always been healthy debate with the members of the restoration clubs on site regarding the balance between preservation and conservation or restoration. It will therefore be of great interest to hear the advice and techniques George Bailey provides regarding the preservation of this type of heritage for the future. A practical workshop of this nature is long overdue and we are very grateful to National Services Te Paerangi for making it possible.’

Workshop schedule
17 & 18 February 2010
Whangarei Museum & Kiwi House Heritage Park, SH 14, Maunu, Whangarei

20 & 21 February 2010
National Army Museum Te Mata Toa, SH 1, Waiouru
24 & 25 February 2010, 9am–4pm
Brayshaw Heritage Park, Arthur Baker Place, Blenheim

27 & 28 February 2010, 9am–4pm
Taieri Historical Park, 1 George King Memorial Drive, Taieri, Otago

ends