 Hello everybody we're going to get started in just a moment. My name is Mike Mourno I'm with Learning Times I'll be your technical producer today. And before we get the session underway I just want to remind participants at the bottom of your screen you'll see to two chat areas or one of them is a chat where you can feel free to put in any comments tell us where you're coming from today. But you can communicate with me via the chat if you need assistance, and the Q&A is available also for accessible from the bottom of your screen so if you have any questions for our presenter today feel free to use the Q&A and it will make it a little bit easier to facilitate the questions form. So without further delay I'll pass things off to Robin Bauer Kilgo, go ahead Robin. Thanks Mike. Hi everyone, I want to welcome everyone to this next C2C care webinar long term storage for large functional objects vehicles. Before I start I would like to acknowledge this webinar is being moderated on the traditional lands of the Mikosuke and Seminole people and their ancestors, and I pay my respect to elders both past and present. So I'm just going to run through a couple of quick opening slides about some programming and some other items and then we're going to go ahead and jump into today's program which we're pretty excited about just because I love learning about these objects I think that it's surprising to see how many of us have these types of objects in our collection so it should be a pretty good time today, finding out how to store them and handle them. My name is Robin Bauer Kilgo I am the C2C care coordinator and you just saw Mike Morneau he's our senior producer over at Learning Times if you have any questions about programming or anything else feel free to say hello in the chat. This is our home on the web connecting to collections.org on that website you will find all sorts of information including an archive of past webinars archive of past courses. All sorts of fun stuff we also have links to our discussion board which is C2C care and a curated resources list so I encourage you to go to the website if you've been there you can also sign up for upcoming webinars on that website. We have two new upcoming webinars coming up in the next few months. Our last one for 2021 is called new tools of the trade. It's actually going to be talking about some online assessment tools that are accessible to everyone to use within your small institution so I encourage you to go sign up for that webinar that's scheduled for December 14. And then our first webinar of 2022 is introduction to digital collections management so we're excited about one because we're partnering with some of our friends over at CCH to actually bring that one on so again those are free. So I encourage you to go to our website connecting to collections.org and you can sign up for those webinars. We also have two homes on social media that is our Facebook page and our Twitter account there we tend to post pretty regularly and upcoming programming and some other items happening within the community so I encourage you to go check out on those if you're on either one of those social media venues. As Mike said within zoom webinar you have two outlets to communicate with us as the presenter myself or Paul our presenter today. One is the chat box you guys are rocking the chat box right now so I don't think I'm going to explain how to use that, but it's there for you to say hello or if you're having technical issues. The Q&A box is there for questions so if you have a question for our presenter at any point during the webinar please use that Q&A box. It just helps us kind of track where we are within the questions during the webinar and you can put a question at any point so if it pops into your head go ahead and put it in that Q&A box. One item that I wanted to let you guys know about that's kind of connected to our topic today. Recently we were informed about an IMLS grant that the next deadline is December 14, 2021 at Save America's Treasures. They've actually recently funded within the last granting cycle some projects dealing with large vehicles one was for a passenger train car and then recently they've done four ships including two battleships. So if you are dealing with an object like this within your collection and you're interested in getting some funding for it I encourage you to go to the website listed down below. Hopefully most people know about IMLS.gov here in the States but I would encourage you to go there go to grants and go to Save America's Treasure grants and you might be able to find some funding for some objects so I encourage you to go there. Without further ado, I'm going to go ahead and introduce our speaker today, Paul Storch. He has been the museum collections and conservation field since 1978 has worked in natural history and history museums in various parts of the US. He is currently a freelancer who runs his own consultancy firm called Museum Science Consultants out of St. Paul, Minnesota. So Paul take it away and we'll see you at the end of the webinar for the Q&A. Okay, well thank you for the introduction and thanks to everybody that's joining. Good to go in here. Okay, so we're going to basically focus on long term storage for large functional vehicles. Really expanded the scope a little bit when I was approached to with this webinar topic. It was about the inquiry was about internal combustion, you know self-propelled vehicles but given my experience and what I know particularly small to medium sized history museums what they have in their collections it's a little bit more than just early 20th century cars and trucks it really includes wagons and my experience with the Minnesota Historical Society starting in 1990. They have a fair amount of fire equipment on wheels as well as farm equipment and wheeled steam steam powered objects and so what I'm including in this is both self-propelled and horse drawn with or without engines or motors. So that kind of defines the scope and then some other definitions I wanted to go over would be working condition and if the object has a engine or propulsion system then that would be in full working order. Generally those were acquired in excellent condition and having usually having been fully restored in most cases by some sort of outside organization and then it gets acquired or donated to the museum. Keeping it in working condition and discuss this with the webinar but requires resources being available for regular maintenance and semi-annual running even if it's not actually on the road. If it's in storage and you want to keep it in working condition it has to be run and there also needs to be written procedures and somebody is responsible for carrying out. Then non-working retired from use which is generally the more common situation. The decision for that would be resources are not available for regular maintenance. It's on either in long-term storage or on display which could also be considered long-term storage in a sense. And also this decision would come into play if it's a unique object. One of a kind early automobile, a unique carriage with very specific historic provenance that kind of issue. Or again if it's used for exhibits because exhibits of large functional objects. To have them run brings in all kinds of issues and problems and requirements and requires again a lot of resources so generally the best decision is not to have them running when on display to use alternative means of showing the function. So the discussion here is going to be really based on non-working. With the possibility of at some point in the future possibly bringing it back to working so that's the idea of the long-term storage and the preparation is to keep it in a very stable condition. So at some point it could go back to working without any further deterioration. So long-term storage what do we need by that? Again as I just said ensure long-term preservation with preparation being the most involved stage. But after that it's really becomes a sustainable, a sustainable condition where what you're doing is with minimal intervention, minimal energy, you're maintaining the storage environment in a holistic manner which includes inspections, pest control, as much as possible maintenance of temperature and humidity conditions in a sustainable manner. And that's a whole other webinar itself and there are other information available on how to do that and light control as well. So with proper long-term storage also called mothballing and that's a term you'll find with also long-term storage for architectural objects, historic sites that are no longer open for interpretation for various reasons. The US National Park Service uses that term in one of their technical bulletins on how to do that. It's fairly, the principles are similar to whether it's a building or a large functional object. So what you ought to prevent are seized moving parts that would occur from moisture getting in, changes oxidation and fuels and lubricants once it is no longer functioning, leakage of fluids, if those are still included, you don't want that happening and either in storage of the objects on display, because of the effect on the floors and a possible toxicity, then you're removing hazardous materials, which again could include fuels, fluids. I don't want to go too far into it, but also lead paint and asbestos might be in some of the older items. As we move further into the 21st century electric vehicles and the batteries and I'm sure many of you have heard of some of the issues with those with the lithium batteries. But at some point museums are going to have to deal with those and hopefully they'll be, they'll be improved and the hazards will be less knows but that's that's something to consider and start to plan for as well. Proper storage preparation prevents the oxidation corrosion of interior surfaces of both the engines and and inside the vehicle. And then organic material deterioration to could be well, ideally prevented but at least slow down some of these materials like rubber. Some of the older plastics like cellulose nitrate. Some of the the early synthetic fabrics for for leather that you'll find as canopies and seat covers and early automobiles. A lot of them have what's called inherent vice where the material itself. No matter what you do will deteriorate so there's in the resource section. The CCI has excellent conservation notes that go into detail on how to what to look for and identify those materials and how to how to care for them so I'm going to keep keep this at the present preservation more basic level and not get too much into into talking about treat particular treatments or deterioration processes that I just wanted to mention that is something to to consider. And then it also eliminates regular fluid changes and running or exercising the engine. There is required actions. What is what is the preparation for mothballing. Well basic principles. The materials and method method should be reversible or retreatable to the fullest extent possible and that that's always a goal of conservation present preservation actions. Each case really needs to be looked at individually because sometimes there may be a material or component where you have to go and be a little more into that. Also, the case could be made that cleaning removing dirt from from a surface is not reversible. Of course, logically it's, it's not but any kind of more intense cleaning you want to make sure the product used won't do any, any harm and anything you put on coating say wax or something like that could be fairly easily removed so that's what we're talking about with that and then procedures and processes should meet the American Institute for Conservation Code of Ethics guidelines for practice, at least in the US your another country than whatever the standards there institution that you're part of or follow policies and wherever you are would incorporate those and they they are fairly well accepted the AC so that helps in in writing contracts as I'll get to in a second. So for the actual mechanical preparation unless you have somebody in house or say local car club or some other type of volunteer or skilled volunteers that are working with you one way to go is to contact a qualified mechanic who has the experience on historic or antique vehicles or somebody in the region or possibly a conservation firm that that specializes in that and then to prepare a contract with with specifications again using the code of ethics and guidelines for practice that would scope out the methods of materials that they would propose to use and then something that's important if you're going to have the the engines motors mothball would be to require photographic and written documentation of all steps and and stages of the work and a lot of times if it's mechanical or engine vendor that restores antique cars they may not well at least about 20 years ago it took a bit to work with them to really get them up to the requirements that and they just wanted at the time nowadays with digital photography and smartphones having videos it's much easier and I think people are much more familiar with documenting just about everything so it's the written documentation that you have to be pretty specific about the quality and and what needs to be included and and follow up through the project on that to make sure that that's up to what you what you need but that's very important for during and after any stages of the work all stages of the work and then to specify and spec out the of course the cost and the requirements for transport safe transport and delivery back to your institution so getting more into preservation measures talking about a base base level cleaning that should be done on large functional objects as they come in on acquisition standard procedures and there's one that I wrote that's in the resources so there's a link to that so you can you can check out that later but the the basic components of that would be to do a condition report before you do anything note the problem materials remove and then once that's done with least basic level photo documentation to remove the dust and debris and with particularly farm this is important with farm equipment on wheels with the oftentimes it could have plant materials all mouse and other animal nests feathers you name it as well as bird droppings bad droppings so during that part of the process you want to be you know you use treated as possible hazardous material and be prepared with personal protective equipment at minimum N95 mass which everybody should have now possibly tie back suits which you can get from different suppliers and gloves and then bag and dispose of the material properly remove remove fluids and disconnect the battery that would just be the basic level deeper removal would come with the actual mechanical mothballing procedure check for pests which in this case would be for any kind of active infestation so again with any vehicles or objects with wooden components in particular especially farm farm equipment like large threshers could possibly have wood boring beetles powder posts depending species and where you are even dry wood termite sometimes vehicles with horsehair stuffing for the upholstery or wool fabric may have domestic beetles and possibly even moths so you want to look at that and then best approach would be contact a conservator or a regional conservation center for further advice and help on dealing with that and mitigating the pest issues secure any loose components and then show some examples of that later on and then put on supports so the wheels or tires are off the ground and both for to minimize distortion but also contact with concrete floors and to well facilitate cleaning underneath the vehicles but also to lower the risk of water damage if there are weeks and then finally dust covers are important to well minimize intervention later on and dust is also something that could affect paint layers and dust tracks moisture so you're eliminating fair amount of risk just with simple dust cover and there's again in the resources there's suggestions for that what to use different different types of tarps and plastic basic polyethylene sheeting works well as well support standard floor axle jacks which are widely available and those can be modified and padded as needed and to select many things to select ones with the proper weight capacity for the vehicle then there's something called go jacks which is a brand name and I'll show that in a couple of minutes those are less of a static support but they're good for moving objects around necessarily leaving on them on for a while but it's very convenient especially if you have a tight space or you have to put your vehicle into another space for work those come in very handy and we're good to have a set around and then four wheelers again could be used for moving but as well for storage and what I'm talking about are the movers equipment they can be used for wood with casters usually they have carpet on the top but those can be used for lighter vehicles and then finally custom made angle iron frames with wheels or casters and I'm going to show some examples of that I'm going to show some examples of design and finding a vendor to make that and of course the cost is more than the other options so here are some examples of that this is in the large object and exhibit storage warehouse here in St. Paul and here on the left are examples of the frame you can see it's the gray painted powder coated angle iron with solid metal wheels at each corner and then the axle bearing here it's a little hard to see the hub hides it there's a U shape support right in there that's been padded with a polyethylene foam to avoid scratching give it a little shock absorbance but these are relatively light carriages and so when they're on the frame it's about three four inches there's clearance here under the wheels these could easily be moved by two people so it's very convenient and here you can see the dust covers and here's a wide angle shot it's a little bit pixelated but it gives you the variety of the vehicles and storage confirmation for long-term storage leading aisles to be able to move things around to show some of the other ones on supports several different kinds of supports also what could be used for smaller functional objects or flat carts pallets either on wheels or just to use a pallet jack to move them around if needed but they're off the floor and they're in a way where you don't have to actually use the actual wheels of the vehicle to move it and it could be shifted whenever needed just briefly it's relevant to some of the case studies if you can make out this is a very large 1930s knife it was a mobile knife sharpening shop and a very heavy truck and an angle iron frame was built for it but when it was being moved it was just too heavy even for that so it was taken off that and put on high capacity jacks so this one doesn't move very often there's a point where it'll just have to stay in place if it's so large and so heavy so now getting into the basic mothballing procedure a good example is Charles A. Lindbergh's 1959 beetle which he purchased do and drove it really all around the world but it wound up in Louisville, Minnesota in the late 70s it was acquired by the historical society and it's been on display and here you can see it's up on an axle jacks on display it's currently back at the site this one's at the history center but before it was displayed in the early 2000s the decision was made to do a full mothballing long-term storage preparation at the mechanical level so a vendor with experience with Volkswagen's and other German cars got the contract which was overseen by the exhibits department at the time I was involved with working out the specs but later on I was involved in the manufacturing of the body so the mechanical stable full mechanical stabilization was done by an outside vendor mechanical vendor here it is in the shop with the body off and then some during treatments of the before and then some of the parts of all the fuel residues and lubricants and oil being removed and then reassembly back into the car and here's being prepared to go back go to the history center and then this is a shot of what I was talking about here these are rubber padded rollers and it fits perpendicular to the tire and then there's a foot pedal and you squeeze in these rollers so it lifts the tire up and you put them on all four and then there's four casters on the go jack so it moves any direction you want you can see going around fairly tight corners getting it into the projects lab and just briefly in terms of the treatment this was a dent that was put in by Linberg's daughter the first time she drove it getting it out of the garage in little falls at the time and he never got it fixed it's very much part of the history of the story of this vehicle so the decision was made while stabilizing other corrosion areas and problems with the body and the interior but the debt was left in place and the scratches. All that is part of the history. So that's something to consider as well. Just some shots of other issues that were conserved and stabilized in the lab and a shot of it inside. Moving on to some of the other types of vehicles including in the scope would be a steam traction engine. So this is self-propelled steam tractor and just showing some of the before treatment. Again, this was a little bit more of a conservation level, but what I wanna show here is some of the shots of the basic level using compressed air to get the dirt off the original condition of this was it was used on a farm and then abandoned, rescued by the steam traction, proficient autos and restorers in the 1950s and they restored it. So what you're seeing with the paint scheme and the detailing here was not fully original to the piece. So that's something to consider in doing base level cleaning and then any further conservation would be whether you take it back to full original condition or preserve the restoration, which is what was done here. But I just wanna show I was kept in a barn until acquired by the Historical Society for permanent display, static display at the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis. So it's pretty typical water damage, most likely from the last use it was retired in the 1980s after a state boiler inspector failed it and the decision was made not to keep it running. So it had been restored and then running for about 30 years and then stored in a collector's bar. So that's fairly typical, what you're gonna find for the base level is still dirt, corrosion, bird droppings, that type of saying. And then here it is in conserved condition with again, it was retouched paint. There was a component that was restored but just the base level cleaning got the rust off, stabilized that. And then since it's on display it can't be a dust cover so it needs to be inspected and cleaned by the exhibits tech regularly. No, an example of a horse drawn but kerosene powered fire pumper. There's a 1909 model made by the Waterist Company in St. Paul's still in business. They make pumps and fire hydrants and other firefighting equipment but society has a number of pieces of wheeled equipment by them including a steam 1890 steam pumper and this is the next generation. So this is an example of rubberized fabric water hose and some of the issues that could be that you can have with that and mainly supporting again, this is the before but better support for this to minimize any further deterioration of the rubber hosing so that's something to consider. And then the level of long-term storage prep for this was not complete mechanicals this assembly but as much as accessible and then cleaning off the residues, kerosene and particular can harden up the heavier component petroleum components form kind of what's called varnish. So using solvents to get that off the brass was stabilized, cleaned and then as much as possible that the hoses were cleaned and supported and both internally and externally and that this was done for a long and it was on loan for a while now that a local firefighting museum and it's back in storage. This is a more basic level. There was some stabilization of components but mainly it's being just base level cleaned. This was a prototype in siloed harvester. Part of it was run by a tractor so it would be used to harvest corn and then hook up to a silo and load it into a silo to save a lot of time and labor. So basically this was clean check for pests and then put on the proper support. This is the first level just to get it off the ground and to move it but later for display and now for storage it has a one of those angle iron supports so that the front could be off the ground as well as back and it doesn't need to turn on these to be moved. Now getting into some of the case studies and thank all of you who set those in some very interesting objects. I have a few from the Smithsonian National Post Office or Postal Museum. So this is a large heavy mid-century bus that was used as mobile post office. So the issue with this for long-term storage at first blast when I went over I thought well, possibly use some sort of support but looking more into the description of it that would not be practical. It takes two tow trucks to move it anywhere. One on each end, one to push, one to pull. So that's a lot of resources. If at all possible move maybe annually back and forth just to reduce the pressure on the tires. The storage environment apparently has been improved recently for better temperature and humidity control. Again, make sure all the fluids are in batteries out and then at some point it would be best to pack the engine with Cosmaline or equivalent. I believe I neglected to mention that with the Volkswagen but that was the main action that was taken once they cleaned all the components and had them disassembled before reassembled Cosmaline was put in there. And that's a heavy viscosity petroleum-based moisture-exclusion compound. There's a link in the resources. You can look at that, it's still available. And it's kind of legendary with the military and there were stories floating around that in the 70s, the 80s you could buy a complete World War II Jeep packed in Cosmaline barrels and packed in Cosmaline and put it together to have a usable Jeep. And I'm not sure if that's ever true or not but that's what it was used for and it is quite effective. Then again, do an annual inspection particularly of the interior components. For past exclusion use, I would suggest using live traps inside if that's an issue. You're most likely never gonna exclude them from something like that. So the best way is to monitor and trap no baits, of course. No toxic baits but live trapping which would require regular inspections. A slightly smaller, lighter vehicle. So it's a wooden wagon on wooden wheels. Again, for long-term storage overall cleaning and this is one that could either be put on jacks, a mobile frame or the lowest cost, easiest would be padded four-wheelers. Then there was a postal wagon very similar to this in the NHS collection and that panoramic view over on the lower right-hand side and that was put on the four-wheelers. These things are light enough where one or two people could move in and then a dust cover. And since it's wood, annual inspection would be best. A motor powered vehicle but not excessively heavy. This one again, could be if it doesn't have to be moved too frequently then the axle jacks would work on that or if possible the mobile frame but with that it's essential to get the tires off the floor else they will eventually permanently deform. Again, the usual empty fluids, the battery and then if you wanna go full. Long-term would be to get someone to disassemble the engine and pack it with Cosmoline and then annual inspection. This one was interesting because of the the treads and the runners on the front of modified Ford Model T turned into a snowmobile and then you can see the, this is a later model, got all kinds of different types of components so it's important this is probably for leather so it's castor oil coated canvas, some sort of fiber so that's going to have possible inherent vice issues and so keeping the light levels controlled on this would be important with all the rubbers and plastics and then the support would be a bit of a challenge and to keep it mobile as well. So when I come up with that would be example of some of the things I was talking about where for this is a viewer where you're looking from the bottom of the supports up so this would be for the two runners you would have either four wheelers or a flat you can also use a board padded board with castor wheels or casters consistent with the weight load on each corner and then so that's for the runners and then for the treads, solid supports and this shows where the wheels under the tread so this would completely support the treads and then at the wheels, the load areas you have these cross pieces to support the weight at those points with the wheels or casters. So that's just an example of a very schematic design how to approach each unique vehicle. This is an extremely large functional object the Southern Railways postal car that has gone on loan transported by rail so it still would be technically in working order. You could see how heavy it is here. With mainly metal or wood but also different kinds of components on the interior obviously it has to stay on rails but with this for long-term lubrication would be important and inspection for rust and using moisture-excluding lubricants and looking at the resources for different types of products and how to use those but just a regular spot maintenance and obviously cleaning so that the paint doesn't become deteriorated and also light exclusion and if there are curtains or blinds and the light levels are fairly high than what you can do is put sort of a sacrificial liner on the exterior side of those to preserve the original window coverings or window treatments. Moving on, these objects are very historically important however it's a little bit out of the scope here because most of what we've been talking for long-term storages and interior and some sort of building on the low with at least minimal environmental controls but due to the size of these objects they will be displayed outside permanently. So that's a bit of a challenge. I want to go too deep into that but since they are interesting challenges I thought I'd touch on it a little bit. So this gives you some information on what they are the one of them is fiberglass and the others metal the mystic was stabilized last year and that was painted which is an interesting approach and I think one that's appropriate particularly since it's outdoors where the paint is it's a more robust coating than say just annual waxing and it serves as a sacrificial layer. So since the original fiberglass is really important to protect and fairly sensitive to light exposure. So the paint is something that's relatively easy and maintained in the long-term that easy indicator if it's failing you can touch up right away. There are concerns about the internal components and maintaining safe access for assessments. Again, in terms of the animal intrusion we would just have to seal any spots particularly from mice can get in a quarter inch. So using appropriate materials to do that and then possibly putting again monitoring and trapping on the inside if that becomes an issue. As far as recommendations continue to work with the shipyard specialists that they've established a relationship with doing ongoing inspections and then operations and maintenance manual have that in writing. So that's an ongoing thing and resources are appropriated for it and consult the references for outdoor display and if all possible as I would suggest a simple shelter and here's an example of this is a steam locomotive that is in a County Museum in central Minnesota and about five years ago I did the assessment conservation assessment for this. It had been restored so what the surface as you're saying were in 1970s and a little bit later paint scheme and restoration. Then in the 80s it had been displayed outdoors without any shelter and then shelter was built which really improved it. The big drawback to fairly recently was that there was no bird exclusion means taken. So at each particularly in the corners there are extensive bird nests and bird activity and you really can't see it from this view but the top of the engine and the coal tender were just covered with dropping. So that those are acidic and leads to corrosion and then from what it hadn't been sheltered the top of the cab it deteriorated it snets wood cladding in the windows here. So just recently the recommendations I wrote are now out for bid for various vendors to actually do the further stabilization and some reconstruction on it. But the shelter here has gone a long way and the scale is pretty similar to that of the for the submersibles. So that's one way to do help with long-term preservation if it has to be outside. And then this is a late 19th century farm open farm wagon, wood and metal in Israel which is in an enclosure but it looks not very tight. So and there's a fair amount of light what looks like exposed to light here and the front end it's cut out in the screen grab but there's the pull bars are supported by looks like saw horses but the back wheels seem to be only these stones or bricks here. And if you could see it here it's possible with heavy rains that you could get some water in. So the recommendations with this would be to tighten up the enclosure exclude pasts, it's at all feasible and put in some light control measures at least when there aren't any visitors. So some sort of curtains or boards that could be put up to eliminate light and also heating the roof look like a translucent fiberglass material that may allow cement for it in there. So ventilation might need some ventilation monitor the environment with loggers and see what that is. And then improve the supports, lift the wheels off the floor if there's any kind of water risk and then again by your cleaning and inspections. Here we have a traction steam engine that looks similar to the Mill City or larger version and this one has been restored and there isn't too much in the way of recommendations for this one other than inspect and address what looks like active corrosion and some dirt on the rear wheels and then check the interior regularly for any kind of corrosion or possible pest incursion and then regular cleaning and maybe just change out the block so they're a little less intrusive for the chocks I made for the wheels a little less intrusive for display but other than that it seems to be in pretty good condition. And this was one case study that was submitted that's really out of the scope and into the realm of conservation but I just wanted to acknowledge it was sent in, it's a unique 1928 auto it does get loaned out and what you can see your water spotting and the question and concern was how to deal with that some mitigation, base level mitigation was tried but at this point this is really needs to be looked at by an objects conservator and if the museum contacts me after the webinar I'll be happy to put you in touch with somebody in your area that I've worked with that would be able to help you or at least give you if they can't do it to give you some references and guide you to somebody who can but what I would suggest is first approach would be to do testing and research to find out what the coating is and then figure out it looks very similar to a bloom on shellac wood shellac surface but most likely the coating would have been a cellulose nitrate so but first level would be analysis and then some testing to figure out how to fix that and then this particular piece although fully functioning go-kart is actually an art object so the key thing here is protecting all the components and the aesthetics of the piece so as minimal an intervention as possible and it is as you can tell an excellent condition so the fluids have been drained upon accession to the museum, it's regularly inspected a lot of organic polymer components as you can see the tires do appear to be blocked off the surface so that's good and then in the long-term have a mechanic take a look at it and determine if it needs to go the full route that probably be the best way to go but if it's gonna be on display something that's important is to secure the smaller pieces it's very tempting something like that for visitors to get a souvenir and with the principle of full access by visitors to objects and not put them behind barriers if at all possible then it's important to probably use something like Loctite on the fasteners to just so a casual opportunistic person I'm gonna take that chrome nut off they'll try it maybe get fingerprints on there but they can't take it so that's one way to do it and that is reversible but that's something to consider but my suggestion for long-term display or even temporary display would be again blocking on the surface, secure all the components and then use at least a half height plexi barrier just to discourage people rather than just ropes or something minimal or even no, certainly I would discourage no barrier at all so that's really all the case studies and what I had in terms of the presentation so I'll turn it back to Robin Hey Paul, my camera decided to not show up so we'll go to second to see if I pop back on here in a second but that was great and I'm putting the link again for the resources so you guys can see that so there I am great so if you wanna go ahead and stop sharing your screen you're more than welcome to do that okay, here we go great, thank you we already have questions coming in so I'm gonna start looking at them right now I will also add that looking at the cars like the vehicles you were putting up I was kept thinking like that looks so much fun and also looks mildly terrifying to ride it at the same time like I was like that looks fun and terrifying because like so good fun moving the steam engine through the streets of St. Paul that was truly terrifying yeah, I can only admit well and I'll just add real quick that my late father used to collected classic cars so I was thrown in the back of random cars as a child in Pennsylvania without seatbelts many a time so I know that feeling of zooming around in a car that you're like I hope stuff will stay on it because we take this turn so that's quite fun to see the pictures so one of the first questions we got is what is the weight limit of the GoJacks there was actually a pretty big conversation about the GoJacks happening in the chat for a little bit so thought we'd start there well, offhand I don't know I would think it's at least 3,000 pounds minimum but that's something that's fairly easy to check yeah, it seems like people were saying that like those come in handy pretty common you know what I mean as something as a tool for people to use so yes, yeah yeah, maybe not for long term because there's still pressure on the tire for tying rubber tires if it's a solid wheel or solid tire then maybe but yeah, it's generally just it's good for moving temporary as a tool yeah, and people are saying in the chat that they can go to the website they have different sizes so I would encourage you to just go there if you're curious in the more specific yeah, and check on the capacity exactly someone says can you tell us more about AxelJacks and how to choose appropriate ones when and where to use them so can you go into a little bit more detail just on the use of AxelJacks yeah, I think for in my experience they work well for you know in terms of the older vehicles like Ford Model T's and Model A's and then Lindberg site also has what's called a Saxon 19 what was that 1916 so it's similar to Ford and they work well for that and the yeah, the placement is right under you know near each we're in the corner near each wheel to place it and then they crank up and down you can get those well, automotive suppliers but really good source for materials and equipment for this kind of work is you know without being a commercial would be the Granger supply and McMaster car they have everything online by category so you can look there and then if needed you could always add like sheet ethyl foam to pad so you don't get any kind of scratching or it's that it's a cross-linked polyethylene padding that you use actually with car dashboards it was developed on not not Coroplast it's a different blanking on the exact brand name but it's used a lot in museums for padding carts and mounts it's a fairly thin material but it has good padding okay yeah, if anyone can think of what we're talking about in the chat feel free to put it there so it's a happy to see it someone says Valara yes, thank you got it, there we go, thank you Shirley yes, it was right there and couldn't come out there's a lot of terms out there so don't feel bad about it wouldn't buy many mean someone asked for a clarification question I think this is when we were looking at the postal vehicle with the sleds on it they said I'm sorry if I missed this explanation we're looking at it by four-wheelers so do you have more of an explanation on that? yes there was one in one of the photos but it would take too much to bring that back up so I won't do it but do you I think they're also called movers, dollies okay, that's the term so it's usually a hard like four pieces of hardwood so two in the front and then two on the sides and they're kind of raised up and then they usually have carpet on there yeah, dollies that would be the best explanation but in the MHS we always call them four-wheelers and then they have casters usually solid hard rubber casters on the corners you again, Granger, McMaster, Carr sell every kind of caster at different capacities you can imagine so those are all as an aside they're also helpful suppliers for object moving carts we always took the basic hard plastic rubber-made carts and then would modify them for shock absorbance and change the wheels and get the casters from those suppliers so you could do that with the dollies as well if you need a heavier capacity wheel you could switch it out from the standard but the movers carts again, you could check with the supplier but it's usually at least 200 pounds I believe you're usually marked on there so again, you can get them for different capacities but those could be padded out with carpeting or whatever or even you can put a solid the solid platform attached you screw that down to the basic dolly to modify it as well yeah, that makes sense it's actually been kind of fascinating looking at the chat because some people like you're getting all these regional for what you just described like as soon as you started describing it I was like, oh, furniture dolly like that's what I know and then a lot of people say that so I wonder if it's a regional thing because people are like you see everything someone's calling them refrigerator dollies someone else said they can come in different shapes and I know exactly as soon as you said it, I was picturing it in my head so I was like, we use those for moving all the time yeah, and that brings up I mentioned the Grainger McMaster car but depending what area you were in you could search for materials handling suppliers I used to get catalogs from them they do racking and all but also equipment for moving, storing and moving equipment but retrieving things so that's a good could be a good source and see what they have that could be modified or used totally question for a collection containing multiple carriages and storage what would you say is the best material for a dust cover to balance weight for fragile canopies versus static cling for flaky paints? well, you could well, polyethylene is the easiest to obtain and cheap, relatively cheap you could get the excuse me, fragile surfaces the thinner gauge, the mills you can go with two or four rather than six the examples I showed, I believe were six the heavier six mill, but those were stable surfaces so yeah, lighter I would say plastic rather than because muslin could be fairly heavy and somewhat abrasive that's why smoother there's also tieback which has a fairly smooth surface you know, that's I would think more costly but you could look at that I think might be a way to go someone in the chat had said earlier they use parachute material for creating dust covers which I think would be interesting I'd be worried about the I don't know if they're gonna get static though I'm trying to think of the material that parachutes are made out of but I think that could be definitely an idea to experiment with in certain cases well, nowadays it would be rip stop nylon which could have some static you know, originally they were silk so what the nylon is kind of a silk substitute so yeah, I think you could maybe get a sample and try that but that yeah, there would be relatively it would certainly be strong but relatively lightweight so that's one way to go yeah the other question is that people were then asking where you get parachutes from and as soon as she typed it I was thinking in my head I was like military supply store and that's what she said is bulk from a military supply shop so it's kind of interesting but I like seeing those people thinking outside the box for items to kind of help out with doing it people also talked about using PVC tubing to kind of help create frames for some of these items which I think is a good idea as well when it comes to making it yeah, I've done that and you know, PVC of course, you know, is not in direct contact you don't want to direct contact with objects but used in that way in fact, I did something just like that with to create a microenvironment for a faux leather chair that was having crystal growth issues from high humidity and all so yeah, I used thin diameter PVC and just created a little canopy for it so yeah, that's a good idea yeah, for sure like I'm saying, everyone's saying like they love these ideas in the chat so am I, I like seeing with people kind of outside the box and that there's a schematic diagram of that and one of the CCI references they show a picture of that someone asked what can you use on tires to prevent cracking? Have you had much experience with that? I don't really, I can't think of anything but you're the answer. You really can that's once it's gotten to that point really for long term storage of rubber which of course would have to come off would be cold, cold storage but yeah, there were some experiments with using things like armor all and various synthetics to at least slow that down but once it's to that stage you know, kind of a well, not getting too deep but with polymers there's sort of an inception stage and then once it passes that that it's really irreversible so it would just be keep it from any further light you know, extremes of heat and humidity and you know, if you can exclude oxygen but then you either have to come off the vehicle and even there's recommendations and some of the literature to particularly tires that are off of vehicle and collection you know, as a collection item, individual item is not even to say that just to sample it a section of it so you have the cross section and that was constructed and just discard the rest of it so and with rubberized belts that were taken off machines particularly was a snowmobile I believe and used a anoxic enclosure for that with the ageless silica gel and all that and the marvel seal and of course that's not exhibitable that's long-term storage so but cold storage is one way to go with those, yeah Makes sense yeah, it seems like a lot of that rubber type stuff there's not much you can do once it hits a certain point you know what I mean like it's kind of like a point of no return and you're just kind of like I'm just trying to slow down the process generally speaking so this is interesting because I think a lot of people have this experience where it says what do you do if you have a vehicle that is considered both a piece of art, painting on exterior and also must run as a vehicle how often should you run it do you still use the cosmoline or would you make the engine not functional? Well, if I understand the question that would have to be a management decision if it's something that say a car club wants to borrow annually for Shaw or a city for the parade then it sounds like it would have to be in working order so then the fluids get maintained it should be jacked up when it's not being used but if that's the decision to working order then in between at least so it would be total twice a year so every six months somebody should come in and start it up and run it for 10, 15 minutes just to get everything circulating so you don't get rust and moisture build up well, that sounds like the situation with that aerodynamic car the 1928 where it was running and they took it out and it got caught in rain so yeah, it's a tough call with that and when I was at MHS there was that situation with the Lindbergh Saxon and we had written up there was a relationship with a local car club was really good and we wrote our protocols where they were responsible and you also have to think about insurance when things like that are taken out and then what needed to be done when they were finished with it, not just park it so they're cleaning and inspection and all that kind of stuff so that's something to think about and yeah, so it might require you know, intervention if something happens so but if what you're going for is preservation and really the best way to ensure that is not to run and not to take it out so there's always compromise you know, it feels like in the best world and again, this isn't the best world you would basically be able to draw that hard line, right? This is either gonna be a vehicle that gets taken out and it's kept functioning or this is gonna be kept inside drained sitting there as an art piece essentially like hanging out, not moved but I know that in the real world that you can't always have that nice black line you might have something that goes into the gray so I think that kind of what you were saying how it's a management decision like it's something that you have to sit there and be like kind of go talk to your governing people and be like, all right, perfect world, we'd make a decision this is either gonna sit there or this is gonna be run, you know but it's hard to kind of be on both sides of that line for the preservation of these vehicles in the long run is what it feels like. Right, it's a little easier to make the case for more of an industrial or agricultural piece particularly on display. Cars, you're right, it's a little in some cases it makes sense to run them and display them that way so the public can see it and appreciate it but like with the steam engine and then there was also a windmill that I had worked on on display in the history center management had wanted those to turn and run and it was a little easier to win the case because all I had to do was bring up OSHA and that scared them off pretty much and show them the requirements for belt guards and that type of thing so and also the resources required to keep that going. So yeah, something I didn't mention with the traction engine of Mill City is the compromise was to have a video of a very similar engine in the field under steam next to it, the visitors could activate and then compressed air was hooked up to the whistle so interpreters could sound the whistle but we really nixed the whole thing of having the pulleys turn and the flywheels and all that. Yeah, I mean, I get it. I think when you see these things like you talk about windmills and you talk about these engines you wanna see them running like I think that's a natural human inclination like you wanna see them going and doing their thing but I think those of us who work in the collection side of the house it's like we in our head, we're thinking, oh my God, stuff is breaking down. I mean, there's more chances of stuff breaking. So it's just, it's interesting and people are saying in the chat like, yeah, we've had these arguments over 35 years. Like that's a fundamental argument of the collection. So yeah, I find it interesting for sure. Well, there was a really good article, I think it's a couple of years now in the journal of the AIC that people might wanna find and look for about that makes a good case for running functional objects just from a holistic experience approach of getting the sound and the physical sensations from them running. So that's kind of the other side. So it's just worth looking at. Yeah, totally. Someone has on here, our airplanes are outside and uncoverable. What could we treat the plexi canopies in windows with? You're having too much experience with that? Somewhat. What would those be, plexi or lexan? Cause lexan really deteriorates and gets. Good question. They said plexi in the question but like if you wanna correct me in the chat feel free you ever posted that. Yeah, I'm just curious about that. Yeah, that's a tough one. If it is the older material and it's starting to deteriorate, it depends on the individual situation might have to be replaced because if they become cracked or really deteriorated that compromise the inside. So it's maybe like one way to do it might be an extra cover. If it's an original and fairly good condition you wanna preserve put a like a sacrificial. Other cover over that like a double windshield. So the originals is preserved. There are commercial like auto headlight compounds you can use for that. While there's the Novus product cleaners you know used for vitrines and museums that's something you can look at. They have the three different grades for that. If it actually is plexi. Yeah. It's a good way to keep it maintained. Yeah, I think it would be interesting to experiment with it a little bit. Yeah. In a chunk of it and just put different solvents on it and see kind of what works best. You know. You wouldn't want to use solvents but the cleaners, yeah. Cleaners for sure. Right. Someone says, how often do you switch the cosmoline packing? Cosmoline tends to harden as it ages. It can become difficult to break down to clean. That's a good question. As far as the Volkswagen that was done. Well, it's about 20 years now. It's been on display. I don't know. I'd have to look into that. I would think that would vary depending on conditions. So if it's been in fairly controlled. I would think it would maintain its viscosity. Yeah. All right, that's not a great answer. No, no, it's fine. I mean, I think that's something maybe to look up. You know what I mean? Right. Maybe try to find the data sheet and see if people have been doing testing on it and stuff. Right. Going back to the fun of the furniture mover, dolly mover, refrigerator mover, whatever we had decided on calling those. If you put an object on a dolly four-wheeler to take the weight off the object's wheels, do you then need to include a maintenance schedule of moving the dolly wheels? So you don't have issues with them over time or view them as replaceable long-term? Well, that would make sense to do that. If you're at the MNHS warehouse, I know that things were fairly regularly moved for just for access to other things. So that was never an issue. So it would depend on your situation and there was definitely a quarterly cleaning schedule where the plant management people would come in and work with the collections manager on doing that, just basic dusting. So my experience, that's not something we had to think about, it was just natural that it would get moved regularly. So, but yeah, if that's not the case, then yes, I would suggest that. Particularly if you're using the hard rubber plastic wheels, yeah, that would be a good idea. Yeah, I think it's a good idea to move any of that stuff every once in a while, even just to make sure that the wheels aren't gonna all of a sudden just break because I know sometimes if they stay still too much and you redistribute the weight, they'll know what I mean, like you lost out. Well, and that's why it pays to get the better, the best quality wheels you can. There's different grades, doesn't pay to get the really cheap ones. Yeah, for sure. Well, there's still some questions left but we're almost at time. So, what I would like to do is if you're comfortable, if we can share your contact information within the chat, I can do it or I can follow up later to send people. Which email address would you like to share with folks in case they have any follow up questions? I'm sorry, the Google one would be best. Okay, so yeah, I will look that up real quick so we can share that in the chat. I wanna give a huge thank you to everyone who submitted case studies because they were like super interesting to look at for sure. And I really enjoyed reading about them and kind of seeing what people were talking about and just the very things that we saw within the collection itself. I'm not finding your Google email address very quickly. I see your other one. So could you say it out to us real quick and I'm happy to type it out into the chat. Yes, P, initial P and then Seth Storch. So P-S-E-T-H, S-T-O-R-C-H at gmail.com. Okay, so I have P-S-E-T-H and then your last name S-T-O-R-C-H at gmail.com. Okay, there it is. So we have that on there. I'm putting a couple of links in the chat as well, including our resource page, the survey, and then also the link to that Save America's Treasures grant that I talked about at the beginning of the chat in case anyone's interested in that. I wanna say a huge thank you, Paul, for all the hard work for this presentation because this was a lot of information but it was really interesting. So thank you for taking that for sure. Welcome. Thank you to IMLS. Thank you to Learning Times to Act as Our Producer. We will get this recording probably within a couple of days and I encourage you again to go to our website and I would say just meet up up for December. We have a December webinar and a January one so if you're interested in registering for those, go to ConnectingToCollections.org. So thanks again, Paul. Thank you, Mike. And we will see you all next month. So thanks. And bye. Bye.