Iron Artifacts

There were a few iron artifacts recovered in 1956/7. There was flaking from these iron pieces during the fifty some years of storage without any conservation other than keeping them folded up in newspaper in a shoebox, inside, out of the weather. My recent conservation of these pieces consisted of encasing each item in four coats of two part laminating epoxy resin. Below are some of these iron items:

These two links are still interlinked. Combined length is 8 inches (18 cm.). This partial double (reinforced) link is 3 3/4 inch long (12 cm.) I believe that these chain links are way too small to serve as the ship's anchor chain. This ship had a draft of approximately 13 to 16 feet, based on the depth of water at mean low tide of 12 ft. where the ship first made contact with this reef, had its hull breached, and deposited all the artifacts that we later recovered. This iron spike is 7 1/8 inch (18 cm.) long. Weight is about 3/4 pounds. This is a square head bolt 1 1/2 inch X 1 1/2 inch, 4 3/4 inch long, weight about 1 pound. This closeup of the square head bolt above shows remnants of threads. The complete inventory of the iron artifacts can be viewed by clicking the picture above. Use your back button to return to this spot.