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The Indian National Trust for Art and
Cultural Heritage (INTACH) along with Alfred Kärcher GmbH & Co. KG organized a three day workshop on monument cleaning at the INTACH headquarter, Delhi.
The workshop aimed to understand, explore and provide a better way of stone/ monumental cleaning. Experts, practitioners, researchers from India working in the area of stone conservation along with the German
experts shared the different methodologies of conservation practiced in India. The scope of putting to practice the methodologies proposed by Kärcher Cleaning Systems based on Karcher’s international monument techniques were evaluated for its ease and difficulty for application in India.
The workshop provided an opportunity to various professionals involved in cleaning of monuments and other stone artefacts to explore and debate on the current practices of stone conservation in India and the future application of equipment developed by Kärcher in India.
Ge o rg Sc hmid , Frank Schad, Head of Cultural Sponsoring fo r Kä r c h e r a nd co-ordinating Kärcher Group’s wordwide cleaning projects for 16 years, shared the necessary knowledge insight in the field of stone conservation and cleaning techniques.
Ac cordi ng t o the German experts, pressure washing, in a lot of cases, is the perfect method for historical structures because of its flexibility. It enables conservators to test and adjust the pressure in the pump, water flow, temperature and spray distance. Besides, it also helps operator’s muscle movement to get the effect they need without causing damage to stone structures. There are also equipment that use various abrasives propelled by air pressure to remove harder crusts on stone. The use of dry ice to remove layers of rust and old paint from metallic structures and also stones is another innovative “soft blasting” system developed for cleaning of historical structures.
