"This book is Bronze Age - quite acidic already." Time flies. Golden Age 1938 to approx. 1956. Silver Age 1956 to approx. 1970. Bronze 1970 to approx. 1985. Forty seven total years. Twice that amount of time later - 1985 to 2024 - Thirty nine years. Will we consider it a good thing that publishers of comic books started to use higher quality/less acidic paper in later comic books? : )
Absolutely Michael. Time is an enemy of wood pulp. It’s been shown that a span of 10-50 years can cause lignin to degrade significantly and release acid byproducts, let alone so many more years. While storage conditions matter, but ultimately, every book from those eras will need at least deacidification to prolong its life.
Good information- I never miss your videos. A question- I believe you prefer to de-acidify on your work mat. Do you think this method has advantages over an aqueous bath?
Good morning Don, thank you for your nice comment and complement. As for the method, I actually do immersions more so than the Mat. And either one is fine for most books. I did opt for this method here because while it’s lengthy, it still gives you more control. The immersion bath is perhaps better overall if the paper is fairly acidic. The bath gives you more even treatment for where the CaOH2 solution penetrates the paper layers evenly and gets rid of the acid and schmutz. Here, I felt that with a pH being between 5-6, I can get more control over the targeted pH of 8 with the localized applications on a Mat and I can do all the sheets after that simultaneously and assess the tidelines better. I know most people probably don’t have the area for fast in situ treatment on multiple sheets and a bath would work well instead in those cases where you can do 2 sheets at a time as Dr Paul showed that in one video. I ended up spraying all the remaining sheets simultaneously in my kitchen area and it didn’t take too long. So it was just a matter of preference for this Ghosts book. But in my next series, I use the immersion method, because the paper was really acidic and the paper had a lot of dirt that is difficult to remove with just localized spraying. So stay tuned for that. The series starts next week.
I use both methods also and tend to use the mat on “fragile” wraps seem “thin”, have a lot of damage or when I anticipate some ink bleed. But, still learning - thanks
Thank you Peter for sharing my friend. Spot on!
Thank you Jerry, stay tuned for the final results!
Looking good!
Thank you Dr Paul!
"This book is Bronze Age - quite acidic already." Time flies. Golden Age 1938 to approx. 1956. Silver Age 1956 to approx. 1970. Bronze 1970 to approx. 1985. Forty seven total years. Twice that amount of time later - 1985 to 2024 - Thirty nine years. Will we consider it a good thing that publishers of comic books started to use higher quality/less acidic paper in later comic books? : )
Absolutely Michael. Time is an enemy of wood pulp. It’s been shown that a span of 10-50 years can cause lignin to degrade significantly and release acid byproducts, let alone so many more years. While storage conditions matter, but ultimately, every book from those eras will need at least deacidification to prolong its life.
Good information- I never miss your videos. A question- I believe you prefer to de-acidify on your work mat. Do you think this method has advantages over an aqueous bath?
Good morning Don, thank you for your nice comment and complement.
As for the method, I actually do immersions more so than the Mat. And either one is fine for most books. I did opt for this method here because while it’s lengthy, it still gives you more control. The immersion bath is perhaps better overall if the paper is fairly acidic. The bath gives you more even treatment for where the CaOH2 solution penetrates the paper layers evenly and gets rid of the acid and schmutz.
Here, I felt that with a pH being between 5-6, I can get more control over the targeted pH of 8 with the localized applications on a Mat and I can do all the sheets after that simultaneously and assess the tidelines better. I know most people probably don’t have the area for fast in situ treatment on multiple sheets and a bath would work well instead in those cases where you can do 2 sheets at a time as Dr Paul showed that in one video.
I ended up spraying all the remaining sheets simultaneously in my kitchen area and it didn’t take too long.
So it was just a matter of preference for this Ghosts book. But in my next series, I use the immersion method, because the paper was really acidic and the paper had a lot of dirt that is difficult to remove with just localized spraying. So stay tuned for that. The series starts next week.
I use both methods also and tend to use the mat on “fragile” wraps seem “thin”, have a lot of damage or when I anticipate some ink bleed. But, still learning - thanks
@@doncarter9467good point on the bleeding. I do the same. It’s good to start always on the mat and then move to the bath if there’s a need.