Jump to content

Preserving/Storing Militaria?


HetzersGonnaHetz

Recommended Posts

At some point, I'll need to get a glass display cabinet for my militaria, I've been reading that you need to control loads of different variables ie Humidity, Temperature, Amount of light?????. In the past I thought all you had to do was control the temperature at a warm temp and stick it in the cabinet. I'm asking this because I don't want to put a helmet in it and it rust.

 

:) 

Harvey

Link to comment
Share on other sites

General rule of thumb is that a normally heated room in a house will be fine. Garages will be damper and colder and WILL result in items rusting.

Material and leather is a different matter and, as a ground dug specialist, I have little knowledge in this area so will leave it to the other guys.

But your normal everyday metal objects will be fine inside your house.

If you want advice on cleaning and preserving ground dug relics, just ask :) Been doing it 20 years and am getting half decent at it.....

Some examples..........

Sten mags freshly out the ground....

DSC08129.thumb.JPG.3a355ea952cd189694601

Same mags, a couple of days later.....

DSC08332.thumb.JPG.dc9fa03602c62a7024373

Vickers connector for attaching the condenser pipe to the water jacket, as it came out the ground.....

DSC02340.thumb.JPG.07b1830779556ea3b465f

What it and two others i found looked like 24 hours later.....

DSC02592.thumb.JPG.337a961d0f7c4de61a27b

Lastly, Lee-Enfield No. 1 nose caps, (just a couple), shortly after being recovered....

DSC00593.thumb.JPG.e121736f1bc30ac57c1f4

And after cleaning and preserving......

DSC00620.thumb.JPG.ffe2054c6ab57f2811a93

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Read my post on Helmet liner preservation, generally helmets will endure a great deal of temperature changes, but a normally reasonably heated and airated home should not have any adverse effect on helmet shells whether behind glass or not, but liners can and do react to certain conditions within the home

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dave is an expert with rubber and leather Hetzers, so listen to his advice. He wears nothing but leather and rubber most of the time in actual fact..........

  • Upvote 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, Steve T said:

Dave is an expert with rubber and leather Hetzers, so listen to his advice. He wears nothing but leather and rubber most of the time in actual fact..........

Are you saying what I think you're saying @Steve T, ;) 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes. Even your young mind has detected, through my thinly veiled words, that @Davejb is indeed a leather/rubber fetishist. Allegedly. 

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What @Davejb does in his spare time is up to him, unless it's very illegal ;) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh, so he keeps his activities within the law. ;) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dont worry about this man Hetzers , he has a fetish of allowing Rabbits to run up and down his legs

  • Upvote 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was thinking about joining @Steve T's MD club, you've put me right off. :);) (Just Kidding)

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You mean you want to join us nutters , you impetuous person you, be it on your own head

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

@HetzersGonnaHetz

Your question is not that strange, because I wondered about it also when my collection was growing.

I had the luck that my backyard had a lot of space and I decide to build a special building for my collection.
This, because I could also regulate everything to the fullest when it was not a room in the house were constant movement is around.

I checked with several museums what the best conditions are to preserve a mixed kind of materials, like steel, leather, paper, clothing.

What they told me is that you need to try to get a constant temperature of about 18 degrees celcius with a humidity from about 40-45%.

My building is isolated to the fullest and have a constant heating system.
To get the right humidity I bought me a air-humidity controler.
Looks like an air refresher and works teh same way.
It sucks the air from the room and warms it.
To much humidity is vaporised and caught in a container.
Normally, on wet days, I filtered about 5 liters of water in a week out of the air.

You can also use an indoor weather station to check what your temperature and humidity is.
There are also small containers available that you have to fill with a material that absorbs the moist.
Problem is that it is very hard to controle, but can help in combination with the humidity measurer.

Hope this answers your questions!

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow cheers for that Henri, ill keep those conditions constant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

With leather goods,  if you treat them to a product called Lord Sheratons Leather balsam, you wont go far wrong, it helps to rehydrate, clean and protect the leather from rotting, even items found in the ground can come back to life, check SteveTs ammo pouches that he dug up, they are totally transformed into what they should look like

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Register for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...