The Future is Wheat Starch?

Culture Syndicates' Jess Tarver and Eileen Patrick 

test out the speedy new method of labelling objects

The Culture Syndicates have been working with a museum just outside Nottingham on labelling their accessioned objects. Although we have worked with several museums in the past this is the first one that asked us to use wheat starch to label the collection when possible.  This is a review of how to use wheat starch and what how we found it.

What you need

·         Neutral Pure Wheat Starch

·         Acid free paper

·         Archival pen

·         A small paint brush

All these items can be found at http://www.preservationequipment.com/

You will also need

·         Distilled water

·         Scissors               

·         A jar (such as a jam jar)

·         A microwave 

The method

To make up the wheat starch mix 1 teaspoon of wheat starch powder to 5 teaspoons of distilled water and then heat it up in the microwave. We found that a little goes a long way so would suggest that to start with you only use this amount.

To create the label write it out on the acid free paper, using an archival pen, and cut it out. Using the paint brush, put a small amount of the wheat starch solution onto the object and then place the label top and stick it down using a bit more starch solution. Leave to dry.  

What objects can it be used on?

What is great about this product is that it can be used on a diverse range of objects. It can be used on wood, glass metal, ceramics, bone and plastics.

Time

The wheat starch methods takes around 10 minutes in total: labelling and the drying time.

The old paraloid and B67 poly method takes around 1 hour (including drying time for the paraloid and B67 poly layers).

Therefore the time saved for is roughly 50 minutes per object…that’s 8 hours for 100 objects!!!

Pros

This method is very easy and quick, especially compared to the paraloid sandwich method

There are no chemicals involved

This method can be used on a number of different surfaces

Cons

It is not suitable for all objects:

-          The labels are very obvious on small or transparent objects

-          The wheat starch solution does not stick very well to polished metals

Would we use it again?

Yes. This process makes it very easy to label a range of objects and takes less time than other methods. However it is unlikely that it would be possible to do an entire collection using solely this technique but it has made the process of labelling 500 + objects faster. We highly recommend that it is added to museums’ labelling kits.