Our city recently commissioned a rehab of a 1926 sculpture of Henry Gassaway Davis. It had the typical green verdigris color and they just finished the rehab last week.
Hmm. It might have been nice with 2 tones, one for the guy one for the horse. The color is still nice though! Ferric chloride or nitrate?
I wonder how much $$$ they got screwed for that job??? I would have left it green. The color is good, but what a BORING ass patina job. This statue might be safe as he was a democrat. Then again, rich old white man could get pulled down in today's climate.
I don't know what they used. I saw on the news it was finished so I checked it out. If I had known it was happening I would have talked to them. That was green in the 60's and I know it's been moved at least three times in my lifetime. No more than 100 feet each time. So, how long before it turns green again? Jason, We're one of the states that had brother against brother on the fighting lines, and no plantations. Kinda safe here. I just found out one of my grandfathers joined the Union Army, got captured by the Reb's, petitioned to join them, which was granted. The Yank's dunned him $275 for his equipment he lost. The horse being the most cost. Hah
All outside bronze turns green in time. If it doesnt get maintained a couple times a year, it happens faster. I need to take some photos of the trash installed in my town. I swear they PAINT it black. Yuk I bet the original verdigris was beautiful and that took decades to create the look. Now that thing might as well be made of resin. Imagine Germany destroying the Brandenburg gate by turning this pooh poo brown?
The one talent necessary to be a politician is the ability to tell a lie and convince the public it's the truth. They know less about art than I know about what's on the surface of Pluto. Richard
Here's an interesting patina. The polite caveman says he put it in vinegar for a couple weeks. She looks pretty good to me. Wonder how tough that patina is? Throw this guy some subs people! I'm the only one subbed to his channel.
Wikipedia says cupric acetate is poorly soluble and a component of verdigris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper(II)_acetate
I'm still learning so bare with me. Cupric means copper. Vinegar is acetic acid. Verdigris IS the green encapsulation. IF wiki says "Copper(II) acetate is prepared industrially by heating copper(II) hydroxide or copper(II) carbonate with acetic acid.[4]" My question is WTF didn't he get green? I'm no chemistry nerd, but I know Cupric nitrate gets you green. So does ammonia and it's made from nitrogen. It's just a really weak encapsulation and falls off at the lightest touch. Funny how we make something brand new and then try to make it look super old. I think I need to dump a chunk of bronze in vinegar and see what happens. I think it just darkens it, but is pretty damn slow. LoS is fast.
I have used a vinegar fume chamber to turn bronze green. And ammonia fumes to turn it blue. I dearly love ammonia blue. But as you say, it is delicate. Richard
Didn't he say in the comments that he gave it a scrub after the vinegar dip: he could have removed any green verdigris that formed. I'm mainly playing around with cuprous (II) chloride for etching metals which is a bright emerald green liquid that vigorously attacks aluminium: when it gets neutralized with caustic soda I get copper (II) carbonate which is a sky blue precipitate that turns into black copper oxide with time. Even soaking for a period of days will allow oxygen from the air to dissolve and chemically change things in the etchant from one form copper(I) into another copper (II).
I have some 24K gold refined from old electronics scrap...will that do?. The etchant used to dissolve the circuit boards is green cuprous chloride and the neutralized etchant is the dark brown copper oxide.
yup.. you win. My local scrapper has a drums full of gold electronic pins. He says they are his retirement plan.
Unless he's got a lot of drums, he might be working for a while yet. It looks pretty with all sparkly flakes but it ended up being less than a gram and sold for $30. Gold plating is pretty thin!.
55gallon drum(s) full.. That's a lot of pins, connectors and crap off some serious military electronics from 40years ago. Gotta be a decent amount, he's pretty secretive about the stuff.