[Nhcoll-l] removing paint from bird feathers

[Steve Sullivan]

We have a large number of such specimens. In fact, it’s possible our institutions cross pollinated with their “paint the mounts” ideas.  Our painted specimens were all part of highly detailed dioramas that grew in complexity over the course of as much as 40 years.  It seems the paint was initially just in the “traditional” places to paint mounts—skin and other exposed areas that were discolored as part of the preservation process.  It later progressed to claws, eyes, and other places that needed a bit of highlight to look like they were being illuminated by the sun.  With the advent of black lighting, additional highlights of fluorescent paint were added to make the “sun-lit” areas pop; adjacent shadowed areas were crisply painted with matte black .  Finally, some specimens were just wholesale painted—not airbrushed or highlighted—just coated in a pretty thick layer of paint that completely obscures color and consolidates fur or plumage.  

 

I’ll say that, in context, the stuff looked pretty good.  For being indoors, a beach never looked so sunny and the dappled sunlight in a forest never twinkled so invitingly.  But, when the dioramas were broken down (long story, before my time), the lack of context and precise lighting made the specimens look miserable.  I’m happy to have someone else contradict me on this, but after such a long history of hot lights on layers of disparate paints, I think restoration of such specimens is sometimes impossible but….  

 

None of our painted specimens have data and all were intended to be diorama mounts—ie consumable in the long run.  I have been able to repurpose some of the specimens by careful placement in dioramas, cleaning paint from eyes and claws but generally not messing with the old paint beyond cleaning dust from it.  In some cases, I actually touch up the old paint with new paint.  In other cases yet, I simply rebuild a diorama around the specimen to make a reason for the otherwise random highlights and shadows to exist or to camouflage the paint.

 

The most dramatic attempt at restoration I did was with a black bear.  It was a fall furred specimen, well tanned, and expertly mounted on a Jonas Brothers style plaster and paper mannequin.  Long story short, I used a succession of solvents (don’t kill me, conservators!) including most of the various thinners in the paint room, progressing from water (which did work sometimes) to alcohols, thinners, up to acetone (obviously the one to be avoided as much as possible).  Each color was individually tested, sometime the color was soaked for some time, sometimes mechanical removal helped (from a stiff brush to pulling each hair through gloved fingers to compressed air).  Lots of ventilation. Often one solvent removed the top layer only to reveal another layer that needed a different solvent.  Sometime a solvent would not dissolve the top layer but the bottom moved and took the top with it.  

 

After all the nasty solvents, the fur was pretty dry so the final key to all this mess was to spray the fur with polyethylene glycol.  I started with the pure stuff but, as a taxidermist I use human hair products all the time because of their, no surprise, benefit to the hair.  So, I ended up just using  detangler spray.  I’m running some long term tests of all this and comparisons against other “rehydration” products but so far, so good with the commonly available solvents and detanglers.  Don’t forget that this was a specimen that was essentially useless and ready for deaccession.  I would never try all this stuff on a data-bearing specimen.  In this particular case I turned trash into exhibit treasure, but it won’t work for everything.

 

--Steve 

 

Steven M. Sullivan  |  Senior Curator of Urban Ecology

The Chicago Academy of Sciences and its Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum

 

Museum|2430 North Cannon Drive|Chicago Illinois 60614|naturemuseum.org <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.naturemuseum.org_&d=AwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=3q2RKpAhxlFKbHjn19wNKioDjEd1Ga4n4E2EO5pWs90&s=xQeFQhv8rEMb6GLKod_Ul4q3nMrTJTYTGj3OfShRJ5E&e= > 

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P 708-937-6253 | F 773-549-0344 | ssullivan at naturemuseum.org

 

The Urban Gateway to Nature and Science

 

 

 

From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Kirsten Nicholson
Sent: Wednesday, October 07, 2015 10:10 AM
To: NH-COLL listserv (nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu)
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] removing paint from bird feathers

 

Yeah, this is not joke. We have an eagle mount that apparently is an immature specimen that was painted to look as if it had the mature plumage (no idea who did this or when or really, why). In its current state is has little use and we were hoping to find some way to remove the paint safely. In a very small and hidden area we've tried paint thinner, soap and water, and Gu-Gon (all of which make me cringe, but what are you gonna do, right?), with zero affect. We have no idea what kind of paint this is, so does anyone out there have any suggestions for how we might remove the paint? This is otherwise a very nice mount but on a specimen with no data, so of little research value, but could have great exhibiting and program potential. 

 

Thanks for any suggestions you have!

 

Kirsten

 

-- 

Kirsten E. Nicholson, Ph.D

Assoc. Prof. Biology          and       Curator of Natural History
Dept. of Biology                             Museum of Cultural and Natural History
217 Brooks Hall                            103 Rowe Hall
Central Michigan Univ.                 Central Michigan University 
Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859                 Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859
989-774-3758                                989-774-3829









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