Interpretive & Preventive Timber Conservation Treatments at the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village, Alberta
The Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village (UCHV), Alberta, is located around one hour east of Edmonton and next to the Elk Island National Park. It is a living history museum existing out of 50-70 historic timber buildings. They are restored from different time periods between 1892-1930 and should be interpreted as their original construction age from one to 23 years.
Wood species and coatings are an important factor to minimize weathering and connected to it decay and color change over time.
Questions of the project are: Which wood species and coatings are useful to prevent the buildings from weathering and color change? Which coatings are useful to make the buildings look original aged like at their state of construction?
Therefore, wood samples of the buildings will be compared with measurements of four different common wood species treated with different coatings. The samples are processed by a weatherometer to simulate different time elapsed weathering processes in a short-term laboratory test (the test will be reviewed by a fieldwork long-term experiment). The color change is measured with a spectrosphotometer via wavelength.
The experiments show that different wood species have a different color change, but a similar development trend over time – at the beginning the weathering process is stronger than at the end. Different coatings have an effect on the color change and can be helpful to navigate the time change in limits. |