Series editors' preface - Wood Tools

398 Conservation of Furniture
resources available to predict the likely outcomes
of each alternative. The methods by
which the success of the treatment are to be
judged are worked out before the treatment is
undertaken. The documentation components
of this decision-making process are considerable.
Some of the questions which should be
asked have been reviewed above.
Everything the conservator finds out about
the object during examination or treatment
becomes part of the new identity of the object
and must be recorded and communicated to
relevant parties. This includes everything
added or removed, the results of analysis, the
nature, location and extent of treatment and all
drawings, photographs and measurements.
Evidence left intentionally on the object as a
guide to those who follow should also be
noted. Only in this way can those who follow
have satisfactory documented evidence on
which to base their own decision-making and
the continued survival of the object.
Individual records over a long period enable
patterns and trends to be recognized and statistics
to be generated. They also form a
resource for further research and development,
education and training and communication
with the profession. On large projects, conservators
may also need to work in a team with
curators, scientists, architects, designers, engineers,
educators, researchers and others to
make decisions to meet the overall needs of
the project. The basis of good decision-making
is good information and good communication.
9.4.3 Documentation methods
In thinking about what constitutes good practice
and what methods to use it is most important
to consider in the first place the primary
purpose of documentation and secondly what
other value the documentation may have.
Conservation documentation can carry information
through time and space from one person
or group to another. It may therefore be
helpful to think about who these persons or
groups are and what they might need or want
to know. For example, the client may wish to
see an assessment of condition to approve a
course of action or cost and to see a final bill
of work. The client may also wish to retain a
copy of any treatment documentation as a
record of honest work performed. The conser-
vator may need, among numerous other possibilities,
a record of how to put the object back
together, a record of what to charge the client
and a reference to future work of the same
type. Other stakeholder requirements may be
identified in individual cases. The form that the
documentation should take should perhaps
reflect the need. Although this is not always
possible it may at least be a guide to thinking
about setting up a system. It would obviously
be helpful if the requirements of different
stakeholders could be integrated into a single
system rather than having to maintain completely
separate systems. This hints at the possibility
of computerization which is discussed
below. It may also be helpful to distinguish
between object-based documentation and
paper-based documentation.
When a piece of furniture needs to be dismantled
it is strongly recommended to mark
each individual element to ensure that precise
re-assembly is possible after treatment.
Preferably, each element should be marked
with a label tied around it. When this is not
possible chalk or other soft writing material
such as a grease pencil can be used to write
directly on the individual pieces. Whatever
writing material is used it should be removable
without leaving traces or an impression. One
should only write on surfaces that will be hidden
from the eye once the piece is assembled.
Self-adhesive-tape should be avoided because
the tape may leave stains on the surface which
can be difficult to remove. A drawing of an
object can be helpful to identify where each
element is located. Such a drawing can also be
stuck on Fome-cor ® , or other soft material, for
cataloguing hardware such as screws that need
to find their exact placing back into the object
(Figure 9.4). When large elements need to be
replaced conservators should consider marking
the pieces in a way that they easily can be distinguished
by the untrained eye. One can, for
example, stamp newly made pieces with a
place and date, or add to gesso or glue X-ray
dense material such as barium sulphate, so that
the restored elements show up on X-radiographs
(Thornton, 1991). It may be possible
to stamp replacement elements to prevent confusion
about which elements are original and
which have been added during restoration (see
Figure 15.6). Such stamps can be very small
yet clearly visible without interfering with the