What do I do with a deadeye?

[cdreamer]

My husband has had a deadeye sitting in a bucket of water for quite some time
now. Does anyone know how to clean and preserve this artifact? Any suggestions as to what to do with it?

 

[Drewski]

Was it found in fresh or salt water?

Whatever you do, DON'T take it out of the water!

 

[cdreamer]

It was found in salt water. The metal has a considerable amount of rust on it.
Someone told us to soak it in antifreeze. But we have not done anything but keep it in fresh water.

 

[LVX]

Maybe this would help - http://nautarch.tamu.edu/class/anth605/File6.htm.

thanks

L

 

[cdreamer]

Thank you Drewski and LVX!!

Terri

 

[wreckvalle]

Dead Eyes are actually easy to preserve. Take it out of the fresh water and dry it for 2-3 days in a warm place (like boiler room of house). The wood can be painted with linseed oil. Quite a few coats so the oil soaks in and prevents the cell structure of the wood from shrinking (which would cause cracks). Most dead eyes are made of Iron Wood so you should not have a problem. If you have cable or metal straping around the outside dia of the dead eye. Clean off any loose conglomerate by tapping with a wood hammer. Once you are down to cable or straping coat the metal surface with Naval Jelly. Their are two types of naval Jelly. You want the type that paints on white then dries to a hard black finish. After several coats you basically seal the artifact preventing any air from getting to and rusting the item. I have several dead eyes which have been preserved in this manner and have lasted nicely for over twenty years.

For additional inofrmation on preserving artifacts
http://www.shipwreckexpo.com/shipwreckdivingartifactpreservation.htm

 

[AXL72]

ummm...what is a dead-eye

 

[LindaBluedolphin]

ummm...what is a dead-eye

I didn't know either, but this is what I found

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...rev=/images?q=deadeye&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&sa=G

 

[do it easy]

Here are some freshwater pictures of dead eyes

Tennie and Laura

Rouse Simmons- third picture from the bottom

 

[DennisS]

Check on using PEG (polyethelene glycol), the name sounds like anti-freeze-ethylene glycol, but it's not.

http://owic.oregonstate.edu/pubs/peg.pdf

Naval jelly, Ospho or other phosphoric acid base treatment is good for the iron. It would be best if the metal could be separated from the wood and soaked-probably not going to happen,