Blue Wool Standard

Blue Scales (Textile Fading Cards)

Description

[International Standards Organization] A standard developed to characterize lightfastness of materials. The Blue Wool Standard consists of a card that contains eight sections of blue-dyed wool cloth, each with a different lightfastness. The dyes fade at a known rate. Each section requires about twice as much light exposure as the preceding section in order to fade to the same degree. Section ISO 1 is the most fugitive and ISO 8 the most stable. In the absence of ultraviolet light, it takes approximately 400,000 lux hours to cause noticeable fading for the ISO 1 level and 900 million lux hours for the ISO 8 level (Michalski 1990).

Synonyms and Related Terms

Blue Wool Fade Card; ISO Standard R 105; British Standard BS 1006; fading card; norme ISO laine bleue (Fr.)

Additional Information

S. Michalski, "Time's Effects on Paintings" in Shared Responsibilities. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1990. p.39-53. R.L.Feller, R.Johnston-Feller, "Use of the International Standards Organization's Blue Wool Standards for Exposure to Light" AIC Preprints of Papers presented at the 7th Annual Meeting, Toronto, Canada, 1979. R. Feller, "Standards in the evaluation of thermoplastic resin" in ICOM committee for Conservation preprints, 5th Triennial meeting, Zagreb. Paris:ICOM, 1978.

Authority

• External source or communication, External source or communication Comment: A.Derbiyshire J.Ashley-Smith "A Propsed Practical Lighting Policy for Works of Art on Paper at the V&A" ICOM preprint, Lyon, France, 1999. p.38-41.

• Conservation Support Systems, Conservation Support Systems, Catalog, 1997