Ever since I started experimenting with restoration, one of the subjects I am most interested in is cleaning, more specifically getting whites white again. I made a assumption everyone would except the trade off’s of bleaching but I was wrong. I personally would like my comics whiter but without the trade off’s. The reason for me posting my experiments is to see how others respond to the results and which they prefer. My early experiments involved water base solvents, but I had several problems with that. The results were unpredictable and went wrong 8 out of 10 times. The 2 out of 10 that came out good don’t dry perfectly flat (harder than it sounds) and require many pressings and time to get normal again if ever. Also there was a risk of residue remaining in the paper.  Non water base Solvents like the ones the dry cleaners use seem to be where it is at. I have been trying different ones looking for predictability and hopeful some consistency. I have been working with one recently that shows promise. The right amount of exposure is tricky and I have to watch closely to make sure colors don’t lighten much or at all would be better. I haven’t experimented with dilution or mixing yet. Ok, so let me know which you prefer, the before or the after and then I can refine my efforts. Thanks….

Experiment 101011946

 My Mission : To become a respected professional paper conservator/restorer

I see a degregation in the inks of the entire cover...as a collector, the trade-off of yellowed cover whites with crisp inks for brighter & whiter cover whites with muted colored inks doesn't seem to be a worthy end.

Are sunshadows treated in restoration---similar to what you have illustrated here?

BTW, thanks for posting these various restoration examples. I believe they are teaching us all what to look for in suspect/ undisclosed restoration.

Cheers!

Dan

What's in my long boxes? http://www.comicspriceguide.com/world/default.asp?m=Magic%20Dan

Hey Dan, have you ever notice 2 of the same issue's where atleast one of the colors is off by allot? I suspect those have been bleached in some way, but originally assumed it was due to ink issue's at the printers or from the sun.

 My Mission : To become a respected professional paper conservator/restorer

I have been thinking about that very same thing. The Nick Fury is a practice run, for practical purposes I agree there should be a serious reason for bleaching. Also covers respond very different than the pages. I can bleach the heck out of pages and the colors dont seem worse for wear but in experimenting with page bleaching, when I pushed the envelope too far the pages became brittle. For now my cover experiments will be to see how much white I can get without color loss. It seems like every cover is different. BA responds well and GA not so well . Then there is SA which is 50/50. My main insentive for these experiments is for covers that have mold or severe staining. I will try to pick a better example for my next post.

 My Mission : To become a respected professional paper conservator/restorer

.

.

.

.

.

 My Mission : To become a respected professional paper conservator/restorer