The Framers Forum

Customer has brought in a couple of small prints from the Kathmandu which are on some kind of cloth type material. Apparently similar items that have been professionally framed in that past have developed small spots of a white fungus after a few years. Questions is: is there any form of fungicide that the cloth can be treated with prior to framing to prevent same happening with these new items?

Any thoughts?

This really needs the services of the pro fabric conservator. Doubting that the customer will go to these lengths, I'd say the best course of action is to brush off any mould and see what happens. They might have been somewhere damp which activated the mould and keeping them in a stable environment will prevent regrowth. Mould spores are in virtually everything and they only grow if the conditions are favourable to them.
The thing is, if you start dousing it with chemicals you may make things worse. If you clean it up and the customer keeps an eye on it, at least then you can send it to a conservator if the mould recurs. If it doesn't go manky again - job done.

It is a very specialist area of expertise and not all conservators are fully equiped to kill fungus spores. The principle methods of killing fungus are intense exposure to light, heat, or thymus vapour phase treatment.

Thymus vapour is dangerous to all organic lifeforms and needs specialist equipment to use it safely. Thymus treatment is considered to be the most certain method of killing mould organisms, but if you breathe enough of the thymus vapour it may very bad for you as well.

Although I carry out conservation and restoration work, the idea of using thymus is something I would never consider doing myself. Thymus is seriously toxic and best left to the experts who have the right training and equipment.

I choose not to brush fungus spores off anything. Airbourne fugus spores can be a significant health risk. Instead I remove them by neading the affected with groomstick from Picreator. As the groomstick picks up fungal spores and material you can just fold the groomstick together and enclose the fungal material inside the lump of groomstick. A face mask would be a good idea!

I put "thymus vapour" and "thymus vapour phase treatment" into google - as I tend to when a word/term crops up I've never heard of.

Try it.

ChrisG wrote:Customer has brought in a couple of small prints from the Kathmandu which are on some kind of cloth type material. Apparently

My red.

Tourist stuff, done with cheap paints and on cheap substrates, probably so cheap that in this country they would not even be classed as paints or substrates. Possibly framed in such a manner and/or with such low quality materials and methods that even if the paints/substrates WERE of high or even decent quality, they'd be up against it ..... and then what about where it was hung.

Just deal with what you are presented with in the best way and with the best materials you have available to you within, if it's an issue, the customer's budget.

Gordon (expletive deleted) Bennet!

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Thymus vapour is dangerous to all organic lifeforms
one for the bloke down the road working in his shed, then

Oh dear, am I losing it?

I should have said thymol. Obviously, my brain was already asleep at the late hourI that I made the post. Thymus is the plant from which thymol can be extracted, so there is a connection, but thymol is the word I intended to use.

Thymol is available in crystal form, which when heated release a fumigating vapour. This vapour is lethal to fugal organisms.

If you care to look up the health and safety information on Thymol, you will find that it is quite dangerous stuff.

It can also be used in without heating in a sealed container in some applications, but the concenration of the vapour is much less and will take considerably more time to destroy the fungal organism.

Thymol is a constituent of oil of thyme, a naturally occurring mixture of compounds in the plant Thymus vulgaris L., or thyme. Thymol is an active ingredient in pesticide products registered for use as animal repellents, fungicides/fungistats, medical disinfectants, tuberculocides, and virucides.

These products are used on a variety of indoor and outdoor sites, to control target pests including animal pathogenic bacteria and fungi, several viruses including HIV-I, and birds, squirrels, beavers, rats, mice, dogs, cats and deer.

Products are liquids applied by spray,, mop, brush-on, wipe-on dip, aerosol, immersion and spot treatment. Thymol also has many non-pesticidal uses, including use in perfumes, food flavorings, mouthwashes, pharmaceutical preparations and cosmetics.

Thymol crystals are a very highly concentrated form of thymol and therefore capable of producing very high vapour phase concentrations suitable for killing fungal organisms and many other life forms.