Puzzle conservation

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Pio2001
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Puzzle conservation

Post by Pio2001 » February 13th, 2012, 10:48 pm

Hello,
I open this topic so that we can share our concerns about the conservation of our puzzles in wood over time. Many beatiful woods loose their colour when they are exposed to light.

Among my puzzles, the most senstitive wood is that bright-orange variety of padauk sometimes called "coral padauk". I've seen a piece of such wood being half red half green ! One half was inside the puzzle, and slowly lost its bright orange colour to turn dull red, while the other half, exposed to sunlight during several years, completely lost its pigmentation and became greenish grey.

I've got two other kinds of padauk among my puzzles. A light one (= not heavy), quite dark, with beautiful pearlized reflections, that tends to get darker over time, and another one, heavy, very dark, with a high polish, close to purpleheart, that is quite stable.

Some other woods are sensitive to light. The yellow Difou gets quickly darker. Purpleheart gets a bit dark and dull.
It seemed to me that Bloodwood is also sensitive to light, but as soon as I noticed a tiny change, I immediately stored all my Bloodwood puzzles in a closed box, so the experiment went no further :)

On the opposite, the darkening is beneficial to some woods. Walnut, for example, and especially Cherry. Both get more beautiful as they age... as long as the change is uniform, because when you leave the assembled puzzle exposed to light, only the outside parts of the wood is affected, which produces terrible marks on the pieces.

It often interferes with the game itself. On these puzzles, it is easy to find which side of a piece must go inside, and which side goes outside, while it was impossible when the puzzle was new ! That ruins puzzles like the Soma Cube.

The main effect of light being darkening, already dark woods seem little affected : wenge, wacapou, plum, or jarrah seem to age quite well.

But Maple, a white wood, seems quite stable. Indeed, it seems to me that when maple is exposed to light, it is the varnish, or wax, that is the main problem.

Vinco's wax (on Duo Burr for example) seems to turn yellow with time. on the opposite, the varnish used by MrPuzzle seems very stable. There is not the slightiest mark visible on the white pieces of Condor's Peeper (in Queensland Silver Ash). But on the other hand, that varnish seems to loose its shiny look over repeated manipulations. My Mega Six Burr, in Western Australian Jarrah, have been heavily played with, and some marks are begenning to appear where the pieces slide against each other.

Talking about marks caused by sliding the pieces, I was unfortunate with a puzzle cut very tight in bloodwood. That wood is so hard, and the corner of the pieces so sharp, that, pushing a piece against another, its corner left an awful scar on the nice polished back of the other one !

In conclusion, I have now become quite picky about the puzzles that I leave exposed to light, and the ones, often very beautiful, that I keep in closed boxes.

What's your experience ?

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Pio2001
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Re: Puzzle conservation

Post by Pio2001 » February 20th, 2012, 8:40 pm

Puzzles made of various woods are an excellent test for light exposure, because the different woods are stored in the same conditions, and if the puzzles are stored assembled, each piece has parts exposed to light, and parts protected from light.

I took pictures of some pieces. I used a scanner rather than a camera in order to get more faithful colours. The scanner has all its colour options disabled. I just manually adjusted the white and black levels after the raw picture was got.

Image

These are pieces of a Tiros made one year ago. From top to bottom : marblewood (marmaroxylon racemosum), difou, and ash (the scanner was blinded by light reflection in the wood).
The pieces were not facing the same direction. I don't know in which lightning conditions it was stored.
This is a classical 18-piece burr. So the middle of the pieces was protected from light.
Only difou was affected.

This one is maybe more interesting, because in the puzzle, each pair of pieces faces opposite directions. Therefore light exposure should affect all woods. With different intensities indeed, but if one piece was especially exposed to light, it follows that its twin was especially protected from light.
It must have been made around 2006 (6 years ago). Stored in unknown conditions.

Image

From top to bottom :
Marblewood
A kind of dark and heavy padauk that doesn't look like the bright orange "coral" padauk.
Purpleheart
Saint-Martin rouge
Difou
Wacapou

The other marblewood piece is symmetric, and I couldn't tell which side was exposed to light if my life depended on it.
All the other woods darkened. The dark padauk and Saint Martin rouge least of all.

In the "striped" woods (wacapou and Saint-Martin rouge), it's the light stripes that darkened. The dark stripes seem unaffected.

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Pio2001
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Re: Puzzle conservation

Post by Pio2001 » July 15th, 2012, 8:28 pm

Hello,
Here is a picture showing the extreme discolouration that padauk may undergo if left in plain daylight :

Image

Inside the puzzle, the piece kept its bright red colour. Outside, the tint completely vanished.


Image

In this picture, we can see that maple, the white wood, under the same conditions, is nearly unaffected. Its darkening is barely visible.
I don't know what is the third wood.

Here is another very curious example :

Image

This is a piece of purpleheart. The main part was kept out of light. The small part on the right was left in daylight. We can see that exposure to daylight actually enhanced the purple colour !

And no mistake, I checked with another purpleheart piece. I left it half exposed to direct sunlight. After 20 minutes, the exposed part had a better colour.

It doesn't necessarily mean that all purpleheart pieces must be exposed to sunlight. I have got some that show a darkening without colour enhancement on the parts exposed to light. These were already nicely coloured from the beginning.

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Re: Puzzle conservation

Post by bluesign2k » July 18th, 2012, 10:00 am

Wow, those padauk pieces look totally different. I knew that some woods change colour when left in sunlight but I didn't realise the change could be that great! How long was that left in the light for, are we talking months or years?

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Pio2001
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Re: Puzzle conservation

Post by Pio2001 » July 18th, 2012, 6:12 pm

I can't be sure, but it seems that this puzzle was stored in a room where sunlight could come in through the window (don't know if it used to directly hit the puzzle) for about 8 years.

On the other hand, 20 minutes in direct summer sunlight were enough to leave visible marks on a purpleheart piece that was manufactured 8 years sooner, and stored protected from light.

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Re: Puzzle conservation

Post by TheJuggler » July 23rd, 2012, 8:12 pm

Paduak will normally take years to get to that point, however stick it in the CA sunlight, and it will greatly shorted. When it's first sanded or cut, it's a really vibrant orange, much like the centre of those puzzle pieces.

I started working with Purpleheart myself a week ago, bought a beautiful board, good purple with amazing dark purple grain in it. Got it home, milled it, and it was grey.

Now, a week later, it's beautiful purple again! However, continue to expose it to sunlight, and it will go dark brown, much the same as the Paduak will.

All the things you learn when you start making puzzles!

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Pio2001
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Re: Puzzle conservation

Post by Pio2001 » August 19th, 2012, 9:25 pm

Jack posted a picture of bubinga exposed to light for three years here :

http://www.puzzle-place.com/forum/viewt ... &t=80#p671

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Re: Puzzle conservation

Post by Pio2001 » August 18th, 2013, 1:45 am

Hi,
I've made some more pictures.

Here is a problem that may occur shortly after a puzzle is made, and only with some given woods :

Image

This piece is completely warped ! Surprisingly, it doesn't prevent the puzzle from working. Among the puzzles I've got, the two woods to avoid are sucupira (picture above) and merbau. They warp easily.
I also have got a piece in bubinga that is warped, but it is the only one among 29 others, while with sucupira and merbau, it is rather one piece out of 4.

Board burrs like the Ultraburr are especially sensitive to warping, and it is easy to see how the wood behave by laying a board flat on a table. Among the following woods, walnut, cherry, maple, beech and difou, the cherry is the only one to have remained totally flat.

Now, here is something strange occuring to red padauk and also to wacapou :

Image

They cover themselves with a white dust that wipes out easily, but comes back after a few weeks. After one or two years, wacapou stops doing this. But I've got a puzzle in padauk that goes on with this even after two years.
The other woods present in the same puzzles are unaffected.

And I've scanned more puzzle pieces that were partly exposed to light. These are the pieces of a Jupiter puzzle that is about 9 years old :

Image
Image
Image

The difou is very sensitive to light. It looses its brightness very fast. The resulting colour is still beautiful, but when it is associated with other woods, the contrast between bright yellow and darker woods is quickly lost.
The purpleheart here is not very purple, except the bottom piece.

Image

These puzzles are younger, and the effect of light is not yet clear. The one on the left is in satine blodwood and is 1 and a half year old. The one on the right is in maple and is 2 years old.

Image

This is Carolina Pine, between 15 and 25 years old.

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Re: Puzzle conservation

Post by Pio2001 » August 18th, 2013, 1:54 am

I forgot : I also put kingwood and brazilian tulipwood to the test. I took a small leftover of both, covered one half to protect it from light, and let them in front of the window for a week.
The brazilian tulipwood was affected, and not the kingwood.

I have also seen a 10 or 15 years old puzzle in brazilian tulipwood, and the red tint was completely lost. It looked more like bubinga than tulipwood !

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Re: Puzzle conservation

Post by bluesign2k » August 18th, 2013, 10:30 am

Hmm, this is pretty interesting and a little worrying at the same time. Apart from keeping wooden puzzles out of the light, is there any way to prevent or slow this discolouration?

This might not be the full story though, I have a few puzzles that are not in direct light and yet have still faded on outside edges. Areas of these puzzles where the wood is tightly covered by other parts of the puzzle have not faded. I can therefore only assume that some woods discolour with exposure to the air - some for of oxidation of the pigments? I noticed this only last night on a Cinnamon Walnut Twist Petit Four box.

The image shows the base of the box which sits on an opaque wooden shelf. The draw shown is a reasonably tight fit. You can clearly see the original, light colour of the wood. The wood is apparently Poplar.
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