All That You Wanted to Know About Ceramic Repairs…
Ceramic tile repair,ceramic tub repair,ceramic cooktop repair
The last four hundred years or so have witnessed varied methods of restoring
damaged ceramics. The major methods that persist even today include metal
riveting, lacing, and doweling.
Earlier, no adhesives were found suitable to repair ceramic objects.
The major difficulty in their repair was that they tended to be vitreous
(shiny and nonporous surface) in composition. So, China started off with
metal riveting, and soon Europe and the U.S. followed suit. The snag to
this process is that restoration can easily convert into destruction if
the conservator is not careful with the antiques! Thus, the practice of
metal riveting can easily give the jitters!
The first thing you do is to drill a hole(s) on either side of the break.
Then you take a brass or an iron rivet, and cut it to size. For the novices,
a rivet is a heavy pin which has a head at one end (similar to a nail).
The rivet is pulled into place through the holes. The other end is flattened
now. The restoration is usually done on the back of the object, to keep
it hidden from viewers. In fact, it is even hidden inside a heavily decorated
area.
So far, so good; but over a period of time, the break lines collect grime.
The rivet or rivets undergo corrosion and leave stains behind. The ultimate
agony is for the repaired areas to become so unstable that a re-restoration
process needs to be carried out. The conservator is now faced with a two-fold
dilemma. The original breakage, plus the damage caused by the rivet—both
have to be looked into. But he/she can take heart in the fact that metal
riveting is unaffected for the most part by grease, hot or cold water,
or detergents. Also, the object becomes functional once again.
An adhesive will not last this long. Of course, modern discoveries have
yielded polyester resins and epoxies. Lacing refers to winding or twisting
the ends. Fastening with dowels (fasteners) is called doweling.
Whether the methods of conservation are old or new, it is imperative
that ethical standards are maintained. Since it is still not a very well
known arena, training centers are few and many miss out on the latest
techniques and newer materials utilized. A professional should be able
to assess, clean, stabilize, bond, remodel and retouch the antiques that
need to be conserved. In order to achieve ethical restoration, it is vital
that tried and proven tests exist for discoloration, shrinkage, long-term
stability, and reversibility/irreversibility. To put it briefly, ethical
conservation refers to the original material or original antique remaining
as unaffected as possible during the entire process. To that end, commercial
products that promise long-lasting bonding or filling or casting or retouching
need to be handled with care. The need of the hour is to ensure that the
life span of the antique
and its repair is extended for many more generations to come.
