Corrosion up close

Who said corrosion can’t be beautiful? Usually we need to use our microscopes to view corrosion within our clients’ metal components, but not in this case. Here you can see a cross-section through a zinc-plated steel fastener from the historic ship HMS Victory. It was installed about 25 years ago and has been removed as part of the current conservation project.

We’re helping the National Museum of the Royal Navy to take an evidence-based approach to materials selection to ensure that the rain is kept out of HMS Victory’s timbers in future, so they are unlikely to ever see rusty fasteners like this again. Read more about our work supporting the conservation of HMS Victory and our corrosion testing capabilities.