York Safe & Lock Co.
History
The industrial complex of York Safe & Lock Company in downtown York, Pennsylvania was founded around 1883. York built some of the world's largest vaults, and during WWI most of the US Army's Howitzers as well. S. Forry Laucks became the general manager of the company in 1890 at 20 years old. After his death in April of 1942, the company started to have major management problems while holding millions of dollars in U. S. Navy contracts, and so the Navy stepped in to operate parts of the company. After their takeover, a large section of the plant became known as the Navy Ordinance Plant, and later the Blaw-Knox Plant. Around 1946, the Diebold Safe Company acquired the York Safe Company from the Navy and continued the label until 1959. The complex has since been completely torn down to make way for York’s ball park and other industrial buildings.
Assessment
Image - Cleaning tests on secondary door showing at least three levels of overpaint
Our client had three identical large safe doors, that used to be in one of their government buildings. Through the years, renovations to the building necessitated their removal. Fortunately, they were not discarded. Our client thought that it would make a good public display to show the front of one door and the back of the other showcasing the locking mechanisms. Well intentioned workers ground the old paint layers covering the original design elements in the hopes of restoring them to their former glory. This didn’t work so well, but revealed the original decoration below even if now abraded. We did cleaning tests on the oil or casein based paints covering the delicate layers of gold leaf and glaze-like paints used originally. We quickly realized that a tremendous amount of labor hours would be required to remove the overpaint from the second door that had not had the overpaint ground off. After discussions with the client, we concurred that recreating some of the surfaces and design elements on the doors would be appropriate. A decision was made to use the door that was over cleaned because we could actually see all or most of the design elements.
Cleaning
Image - Cleaning locking mechanism
We quickly realized that each safe door weighed about 700 lbs and which required the use of heavy duty lift equipment to move the door around our studio safely. Once raised to table height and laid flat, we could easily work on the surface. For both doors to be worked on (front of one, and back of the other) we needed to disassemble all of the chrome plated iron framework attached to the back of each door, requiring us to move the doors more than once. All hardware had old discolored lacquer removed with solvents, dental picks, and surgical scalpels. Minimal areas of rusted iron, showing through areas where chrome plating was missing, were stabilized and then re-lacquered to show off its original brilliance. All locking mechanisms were disassembled, cleaned, and coated with lacquer for later assembly as well.
Inpainting
Since the majority of the painted surface on the front of the door had been damaged/abraded by previous well-meaning attempts by county staff members, it was necessary to recreate much of the front painted surface, including the intricate pin stripping patterns/designs. The silver background was repainted to match the original (brush painted, not spray coated) using an industrial paint appropriate for a metal surface.
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The intricate pin stripping was recreated, reinforced, or duplicated from remained paint or shadowy remnants of paint. All other painted design elements, shadows, black stripping, and pin stripping were recreated/inpainted using conservation grade paints. After inpainting, the door received a spray coat of synthetic varnish to better protect all newly painted and remaining original surfaces. This process took many painstakingly long hours to complete.
Image - Before treatment detail of layers of overpaint and loss of pin stripping
Gold Leafing
All gold leaf surfaces were also recreated using “Patent Gold Leaf.” The gold leaf was also toned/coated with orange shellac to age its appearance. After the painting portion of the project had been completed, we could now reassemble all of the recently cleaned, and re-lacquered rear door decorative chrome plated elements, locks, and hinges.