[Nhcoll-l] Removing masking tape from rocks and minerals

[Barbara Winter]

Hi Katie, 

Pedro's advice is a great way to go, but I would add a couple of cautions. First, make sure the specimen is not adversely affected by the ethanol by doing a small test swab. You can dilute the ethanol 1:1 with distilled water for paper residues, and stronger (more ethanol) for adhesive residues. Also, I'd use a wooden spatula rather than a metal one, so you don't inadvertently scratch the surface of the specimen. I often just whittle a coffee stir stick into an appropriate shape and use that. 

Good luck with it! 

Barb 

Dr. Barbara J. Winter 
Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology 
Department of Archaeology 
Faculty of the Environment 
Simon Fraser University 
8888 University Drive 
Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6 

t. 778.782.3325 
f. 778.782.5666 
bwinter at sfu.ca 
www.sfu.museum 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Pedro A. Viegas" <paleomail at gmail.com> 
To: "Katie Connolly" <katie at cablemuseum.org> 
Cc: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu 
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2014 3:14:05 PM 
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Removing masking tape from rocks and minerals 

Dear Katie 

Sounds like a little treasure you got there. 

It will all depend on the rock/mineral/fossils you have in that collection - a picture always helps to make a better decision on how to approach any specimen. 

If it is just "regular masking tape" (the yellow, paper based tape) then it should be fairly easy, once again it will depend on the specimens you have. 

If it is that tape, then I would suggest to initially, gently swab the tape with ethanol, this will moisten the tape, making it less brittle and dry as it probably is. 
After you can start on one end to with very gentle swabbing dabs of ethanol and gently peeling the tape. The ethanol should dissolve the glue which you can remove with the swab+ethanol. 

If the glue does not dissolve after this first test, then you can try the same thing but with acetone, but once again its all specimen dependent. 

I removed very old and dry tape from different specimens (mainly fossils) with the swab+ethanol and scrapping technique if you are delicate it works great. In some the initial gently soaking was enough to make the tape peel right off. 



Hope it helps, 

ps: take a pic of the before and after. 


Best wishes 


Pedro A Viegas 
Natural History Curator & Conservator 

paleomail at gmail.com 
+44(0)7587051425 

Follow me on Twitter - @PedroAViegas 
A bit more about me on LinkedIn 


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