Having found and dug up a nice relic , brought it home and rinsed off the dirt and cleaned it up using oxalic acid or electrolysis , the next step would be to preserve it and try to stop the object from rusting away.
In this little Step-by-Step I`ll show one of the ways how to treat the relics you want to keep in your display. It is a relatively quick process and you `ll need a few things :
A well ventilated area
A small tub
Soft paintbrush or airbrush
White Spirit/Odourless Mineral Spirit
Renaissance Wax or other preservation wax
Ren Wax The Renaissance Wax is a microcrystalline wax polish used by museum curators, collectors and restoration specialists. This stuff dries matt and hard and will protect the item from air exposure, finger marks etc. Usually it is applied with a soft cloth, but for some relics it is easier to mix it with mineral spirit. You can also remove the wax from an object using mineral spirit should you ever need to.
Mixing wax and mineral spirit to a milk like consistency. I put a small blob of the wax into a glass, followed by a swig of the mineral spirit. This must be mixed thouroughly as the wax needs to become completely dissolved. If not done well enough you will have small white specks of wax showing on the relic when the whole thing dries, and then you have to start working on it again. Best to try to get it right the first time around by having patience with the mixing. We are looking for that milk-like consistency, and again making sure the wax is completely dissolved.
Brushing the wax onto the relic. Now it is just to brush the wax on to the item, making sure it gets into every nook and cranny, and then put it to dry. I let this one dry for a day or so before I had to spend an hour removing a few of those white specks of wax and then giving it a light buff. But when that was done I could put the helmet back on its shelf, looking just as it did, well, maybe the color looks slightly fresher than it did before.
Preserved with wax.
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