General Interest Article On Identifying Materials in Antiques

[thecatspajamas]

Interesting overview, and one I'm sure I'll refer back to from time to time. Thank you for putting it together, and especially for making it available in a downloadable form. Also glad to see you back up and around, or at least able to stab at your keyboard again.

If you ever find yourself wanting for short topics to write about, how about this:
In one of your books (which one specifically escapes me right now) you mention how some inexpensive digital cameras can be converted to an infrared camera, which in turn is useful in certain circumstances for examining pieces. Would you be able to give a quick primer as to which ones you know of and how to go about converting it? Even if it's just the single model that you have and are familiar with, that would be good enough to find a working used one and change it over. I did some searching at the time for instructions and/or pre-converted cameras, but everything I found was either a very expensive new camera that had been converted, or lengthy highly-technical instructions for DIY conversion that were well beyond my skill set. If there is an old beater model out there I can pick up cheap and play around with, that would be better than an expensive one that I use a few times a year and feel guilty the rest of the time for how much it cost (or, more likely, that I don't buy in the first place).