A Study in Reducing Cockling of Chinese Hanging Scrolls
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The presented research is on an important topic concerning the Chinese and world cultural heritage, which is why there will be an interest from the readers.
Introduction
Lines 43-44: “In both ancient and present-day books and literature, many factors are mentioned that affect the cockling of artwork [1-11]” - Please be more specific. In my opinion, this part should be extended by synthesizing the main conclusions from the listed references.
Since the publication is in a scientific and not a popular science journal, this part of the manuscript should be given in more depth the basic laws of mass transfer in the drying process of the materials (influence of temperature, humidity, etc.).
Materials and Methods
Lines 231-236: “Then the artwork was removed from the board and placed in a CTH room for 24 h. The artwork was laid on a flat table 234 top to measure the degree of cockling. The drying durations included 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 235 14, 21, 28, 42, 60, 90, 180, and 300 days”. – Please be more specific about how do you choose these parameters. Give references.
The same is the recommendation for “Fourteen days after the artwork pieces were backed and attached to the board; 238 they were detached from the board at RHs of 50%, 60%, and 70%, conditioned in a CTH 239 room for 1 day and then placed on a flat tabletop to measure their cockling heights” – Lines 238-240.
Results and Discussion
Figure 15 “Effects of the drying duration on cockling height of mounted artworks” – How do you explain the anomaly on day 6 - decrease in Cockling height and subsequent increase again? The very large values of the standard deviation in the series are impressive. Have you checked the statistical significance of the results? If yes, please provide data in the manuscript. Due to the close values to day 14 and the large standard deviation, it would be good to do a T-Test (standard function in Excel) to determine the statistical difference and from there to determine after which day a significant effect on cockling height is observed.
The same is my recommendations for the other data presented in graphical form.
Figure 17: - Please again with T-Test to determine whether the code measuring point affects the cockling height or the influence is only from the direction of measurement. The same is valid for Figure 18.
Figure 20 and Figure 21 – Please again conduct a T-Test to determine which factor affects cockling height.
Author Response
The reviewer responses and revised manuscript are attached for your further processing. We have revised the manuscript, point to point, according to reviewer comment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
COMMENTS TO AUTHORS
This work tries and brings some order in a complex practical issue in paper heritage preservation. The article is well written and tries a systematic approach, even though the problem is approached more from a phenomenological point of view, rather than providing insights at the micro scale. However, it is still a valid contribution, but I recommend some corrections:
- Even though the article is well-written and organized, please detail better the experimental section, for instance how the wax was prepared (composition), applied, etc., providing more details for all the experimental sections so as to improve reproducibility.
- Waxing on paper makes me perplexed: how is the wax going to age? Will it cause yellowing and disfiguration of the paper? The authors should add a small but more detailed section in their discussion to better address this possible drawback, either citing literature or doing some accelerated aging (UV, T, RH).
- Because controlled moistening of paper seems to have an effect, I suggest introducing a small section in the discussion or conclusions to mention the possibility of wetting the paper at controlled rate using gels, possibly coupled with mechanical action, to adjust the cockling. It would be great to have a short discussion by the authors on this perspective. For what concerns hydrogels with controlled release, here are two literature references usable in their perspective discussion on this topic:
- Mirabile et al., Innovative methods for the removal, and occasionally care, of pressure sensitive adhesive tapes from contemporary drawings, Heritage Science volume 8, Article number: 42 (2020).
- Baglioni et al., Complex Fluids Confined into Semi-interpenetrated Chemical Hydrogels for the Cleaning of Classic Art: A Rheological and SAXS Study, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2018, 10, 22, 19162–19172.
Author Response
The reviewer responses and revised manuscript are attached for your further processing. We have revised the manuscript, point to point, according to reviewer comment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The esteemed authors have complied with or explained all the recommendations made by me. In my opinion, this has contributed to increasing the clarity and hence the quality of the manuscript. The number of references has also been increased with the addition of more contemporary ones. It should be borne in mind here that the subject under consideration is specific and I, therefore, consider that the References cited are appropriate. I reaffirm my opinion that the presented research is on an important topic concerning the Chinese and world cultural heritage, which is why there will be an interest from the readers. This gives me a reason to recommend acceptance of the manuscript.
