1912 Gonzales Biplane Restoration

[ALOHADAVE]

I need advice about how to best preserve/treat the wood and wires on the 1912 vintage Gonzales Tractor No. 1 Biplane. It is intended for museum display.

More info about the airplane at this link https://doolittlecenter.org/html/gonzales.html

photo on line here https://www.flickr.com/photos/jacksnell707/16982745321
Photo below

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[astixjr]

This is really interesting. Its not often that I see an authentic pre-WWI airplane without the fabric on it. What an amazing piece of aviation history! We are trying to ID a fuselage that was donated to the Missouri Aviation Historical Society by the A. Paul Vance estate here in the St. Louis area. We have often thought the fuselage was pre-WWI but we have no info on it. We don't know where it was built, by whom, or even if it was ever a complete airplane. I've looked at lots of pre-WWI a/c photos on the web but the Gonzales seems to be the most similar. At least from what I could see in your links.

We have three WWI era planes in our collection and at least one of them has, or at least we think it has, lots of original wood. It's hard to say for sure why the wood survived so well but the varnish seems to have been applied very well and it must have been stored in the right conditions. Is the wood on the Gonzales No.1 varnished?

Albert Stix
Historic Aircraft Restoration Museum
Creve Coeur Airport
Maryland Heights, MO.