Any advice on adhesives/solvents for bonding wood cracks of contemporary paintings that are super sensitive to everything polar (paint and the support), especially water?
I have a case of a painting made on Triplex plywood. Which means it is very reactive to humidity and almost every other solvent but hydrocarbons. I cannot use an animal glue or any other type of water-based adhesive because the wood and the painting will react to that. So I though paraloid but it would have to be in toluene or xylene - which I would like to avoid. Any advice? Experiences?
The board is super thin, and the cracks are located in the frame area, so I need an adhesive with considerable strength, and it would be perfect if it stays reversible in apolar solvents.
Few years ago I started looking for different solvents to dissolve paraloïd because I needed to use it as consolidant for wood. I wanted to find an apolar solvent in order to avoid the swelling of wood. The using of the "trisolv", triangle of solubility tool, was very helpful and I tried to dissolve the resin in a mix of ethyl acetate and isooctane. I think it is possible to acheive the dissolution in such solvents but the acetate is very volatile, so it is not easy to get the dissolution right. I would continue searching in the trisolv for a solvent mix.
The other solution is to look for another resin. The MS2A used to be a good solution, unfortunately it is not produced anymore I think. Also it was tested as varnish but not for gluing maybe.
Maybe it is also possible to think about waxes. I know wax immediately sounds as IRREVERSIBLE, but there is also the importance of the possibility to treat again the object if it is not possible to take off the added product . Sometimes this is the choice that we have left. In the family of waxes maybe there is a solution for something with a melting temperature high enough in order to be used to fix the support.
Those are just ideas...not solutions...but at least we share! Thanks for the opportunity!
Hi Militza! Thanks for sharing!!! And for the help. We still have some MS2A in the studio, maybe adding some charge on it can help, i'll research more about and try. Thanks!
Ian Loughead on Facebook suggests the use of a heat-set resin rather than a solvent set. For example, you could use Beva film or paint Lascaux out onto a sheet of silicone release before letting it dry and reusing it. However, using Beva or Lascaux effectively on wood can be tricky in terms of technique.