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Each summer, one generous volunteer or staff member and I roll up our sleeves for two days of housecleaning in the Museum’s exhibit galleries, to tidy up for another busy year of school tours. While my assistant is dealt the backbreaking tasks of dusting, vacuuming, and polishing the exhibit cases, structures, and floors, it falls to me to clean the delicate artifacts on display.
The periodic removal of the fine layer of dust and dirt that collects on items—even those under glass—greatly helps prolong their lifespan. This is because dust has a magnetic effect to airborne pollutants, attracting and holding them to the surface of an object. It is also abrasive, traps humidity, and often contains acidic matter that can create concentrated areas of deterioration. And of course, it dulls the items’ appearance.
Smooth surfaces such as metal, plastic, glass and ceramics may be dusted with a clean, soft, lint- and chemical-free cloth (museum-quality cloths are available at
www.gaylord.com). However, the safe removal of dust from certain hard-to-clean collectors’ items such as baskets and textiles is more challenging. At this museum, we use specialized methods to loosen and remove dust from such items. These methods are cheap and easy to replicate at home on your own heirloom pieces.
Follow the tips below to dust your hard-to-clean items:
Upholstery & Flat Textiles
Place a soft, flexible, fine mesh screen (ask for screen door screening at the hardware store), whose edges have been finished with a strip of smooth tape or cloth, over the surface to be dusted. Cut the screen to a convenient size for its intended use (you may wish to cut a few of varying sizes). Using your vacuum’s upholstery head, touch—don’t drag—the nozzle lightly to the surface and hold briefly. Repeat until entire area has been treated.
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The delicate gathers and fringe of this extravagant lampshade, in our Tourist Hotel display,
make excellent dust traps. A brush head attachment is used here
(along with a protective screen) because if creates less suction on the gauzy fabric.
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Awkwardly Shaped Textiles
Wrap a small piece of screening or several layers of cheesecloth over the head of your vacuum attachment and secure with a rubber band (avoid using brush heads for this, as the bristles can poke through and catch the fabric). For smaller items, place one hand inside the item while the other guides the vacuum nozzle. For larger items, use a dress form or stuff individual sections with crumpled tissue paper (the kind used in gift-wrapping) and work section by section—this way, pleats and gathers can be more easily accessed. Again, touch, don’t drag, the nozzle.
Beaded Textiles
With a baby hairbrush or extra soft-bristle toothbrush (whichever is more appropriate to the size and shape of the item), gently dab at beading to loosen lodged dirt. Then remove the loosened dirt using one of the vacuuming methods above.
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Here, with gloved hands, I gently work the dust out of a 19th-century jet beaded collar
on display in our Overland Trail exhibit.
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Baskets
The woven surface of baskets makes cleaning particularly difficult, and since many of them are desiccated and brittle, they are especially fragile to the touch. To free them of dust, use a dust blower. Canned blowers, which are sold in office supply stores and are used for dusting computer keyboards may be too rough on fragile baskets. Try a gentler, hand-operated blower sold by archival supply companies (try
www.gaylord.com).
Happy cleaning!
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