I'll jump on the ignorancy band wagon.  Just WHERE does one go to get
their blobs x-rayed?  I wouldn't think all or many medical places would
do it too willingly (wouldn't have the Time).  So...where else is this
available?

Curating a box (12x15x10") cost $700 ea. here in San Diego Co.  Ouch
(you can imagine the joy the developer usually has when they get to pay
this fee; so they gladly would like us Not to save Everything).

X-rays seem a better way to go...since, as you state, if not properly
conserved...the corrosion continues, and you end up with a pile of dust
in the bag/box.  

For some yrs. there was a ferrous cup included in a display of historic
artifacts at an adobe ranch complex...and I pointed out how the cup
continued to 'shed'...which wasn't too attractive.  After some 3 yrs, I
see the cup has now been removed from the display.

>-----Original Message-----
>From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On 
>Behalf Of Sara Rivers
>Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 12:06 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Discarding iron (was: curation of hazardous materials)
>
>X-radiography of metals may seem to be over the top for your 
>basic iron blob, but in reality it is a very affordable 
>identification technique, and its use could potentially save 
>CRM firms money while retaining the information that the iron 
>objects have to offer.  I recently asked a conservator who 
>does x-radiography to compare the price of x-raying a box of 
>iron to the one-time box fee in Maryland ($350).  The bottom 
>line was that it would be cheaper to x-ray and discard that 
>box of iron than to pay the box fee (and I know that many 
>states are even more expesive, so the cost savings increase  
>the higher the state box fee is).  
>   
>  The best part about this is the added advantage of not 
>throwing away all of the information that those blobs hold.  
>An x-ray of a blob might well reveal only nails, but from that 
>image, you can usually tell if it's a wire, wrought, or cut 
>nail and you can take measurements.  If you curate the 
>materials without conservation, they'll deteriorate and the 
>information will be lost.  If you automatically discard them, 
>obviously the information is lost.  X-radiography should be 
>seen as an affordable form of mitigation for that information 
>loss, and the x-rays themselves another part of the 
>photodocumentation of a site.  If we as archaeologists are 
>open to such techniques, we may find that these studies are 
>not as over-the-top as we thought.
>   
>  If anyone is interested in the x-radiography 
>cost-effectiveness study that I mentioned, Howard Wellman 
>presented it at the Middle-Atlantic archaeology conference 
>this year, and if you contact me off-list I can ask him to 
>share it with you.
>   
>   
>  Sara Rivers Cofield
>  Curator of Federal Collections
>  Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory