The Manual of Musical Instrument Conservation

Publication planned for: April 2015

This is the first book to combine museum-based conservation techniques with practical instructions on the maintenance, repair, adjustment, and tuning of virtually every type of historical musical instrument. As one of the world's leading museum-based conservators of musical instruments, Stewart Pollens gives practical advice on the handling, storage, display, and use of historic musical instruments in museums and other settings, and provides technical information on such wide-ranging subjects as acoustics, cleaning, climate control, corrosion, disinfestation, conservation ethics, historic stringing practice, measurement and historic metrology, retouching, tuning historic temperaments, varnish, and writing treatment reports. There are informative essays on the conservation of each of the major musical instrument groups, the treatment of paper, textiles, wood, and metal, as well as historic techniques of wood and metalworking as they apply to musical instrument making and repair. This is a practical guide that includes equations, formulas, tables, and step-by-step instructions.

- Arranged alphabetically for quick retrieval of information
- Presents treatments, materials, and formulas recommended by leading conservators working in major museums
- Describes the procedures used in restoring and maintaining woodwind, brass, stringed instruments, keyboard, percussion, and ethnographic instruments
Provides practical advice on handling, storage, and use of musical instrument

CONTENIDO:

Introduction
- Entries A-Z:
Acoustics
Benzotriazole
Bleach
Boxwood
Brass, bronze, and nickel silver alloys
Brass and nickel silver cleaning
Brass instrument conservation
Bronze disease
Calendar
Cents conversion
Chemical analysis
Cleaning: soaps and detergents
Clavichord maintenance
Compo or pastiglia
Conservation reports
Dendrochronology
Dictionary of common and obsolete chemical terms
Disinfestation
Drill bits
Ebony and ebonizing
Electroplating and electro-cleaning
Epoxy removal
Ethics
Flutes
Fortepiano maintenance
French polishing
Frets, tied and fixed
Gilding
Glues, pastes, and other adhesives
Grain painting and marbling
Grit size comparison chart
Guitar stringing
Gut strings
Handling, storage, and transporting musical instruments
Harp maintenance and stringing
Harpsichord maintenance
Helmholtz resonator
Historical metrology
Humidity control
Hurdy gurdy stringing
Illumination level
Inscriptions, faded
Intervals
Iron and steel
Ivory
Japanning
Keyboard instrument conservation
Labels
Lacquer
Lakes
Lead and lead alloys
Leather
Lute stringing
Measurement
Measurement system conversion
Mersenne's Law
Metallurgy
Metalworking
Mold making
Mother-of-pearl and abalone
Nickel silver cleaning
Oddy test
Organ restoration
Overspun strings
Paper, pencil, and ink
Parchment, vellum, and slunk
Patination
Pegs
Piano action regulation (modern grand)
Pitch
Proportion
Recording
Relative humidity
Retouching
Rosin
Safety equipment
Scaling
Sealing wax
Sharpening tools
Silver cleaning
Soldering
Solvents and solvent cleaning
Specific gravity
Staining wood
Stain removal
Stradivari's varnish
Stringed keyboard restoration
Tap drill sizes
Tapers
Temperature
Tempering steel
Textile cleaning
Tinning
Tortoiseshell, horn, and whalebone
Tuning and temperament
Vapor-phase inhibitor paper
Varnish
Viola da Gamba strings
Violin adjustment
Violin, baroque fittings and strings
Violin sizes
Violin and viola strings, modern
Vulcanite and ebonite
Wax cleaning emulsion
Wire gauge systems for early keyboard instruments
Wheat paste
Wood
Woodwind instrument conservation
Woodworking