Varnishes and Surface Treatments of Historical Wooden Artworks

Dear Colleagues,

Wood is probably one of the most employed materials in human history, due to the properties of ease in manufacturing, extreme availability and transportability, and also the capability of being a valid support for both organic and inorganic materials. Like all natural materials, wood undergoes fast degradation processes, either chemical and biological; therefore, we have always developed better conservation technologies, connected both to a suitable conservation of the manufacturing and in the protection of their surfaces. The conservation of wooden manufactured goods embraces different areas of restorative intervention, ranging from wooden polychrome works to lutherie area, up to the wider and better-known field of wooden furniture restoration. All these areas of intervention, each with its specific features, often use the same categories of natural compounds in the treatment of wooden surfaces, although using different application techniques. The main functions of these products are connected to the protection of the wooden surface, both from a mechanical and a chemical point of view, creating a superficial film that performs an aesthetic function that reduces the direct contact of the wooden support with the environment, which increases the hydrophobic rate of the wood itself and protects it from external agents, such as light, relative humidity, accidental impacts, biological agents and insects. The categories of natural materials still in use today for the protection of wooden surfaces concern products, such as animal resins (shellac), vegetal resins (mastic, sandarac), natural oils (especially siccative oils, e.g., linseed oil), and natural waxes. The considerable advantages that these natural products provide are unfortunately compensated by some functional limitations, such as high removability due to abrasion, a low hardness and consequent reduction of surface resistance, excessive thermoplasticity that changes structural characteristics during hot periods, or when in contact with external heat sources (even the human body). Towards this goal, we are assembling a Special Issue of Coatings to encourage researchers and to provide them with a platform to publish their novel studies.

The theme of this Special Issue broadly includes (but is not limited to):

• Natural organic coatings;
• Hydrophilic or hydrophobic coatings;
• Interactions between wood and coatings;
• Polychrome coatings;
• Degradation processes of coatings and wood;
• Novel coatings and characterizations.

Dr. Marco Malagodi

Guest Editor

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