Vinegar Syndrome treatment
First of all, our priority at CelOasis is to keep your cel in perfect shape in short, long and very long period of time. To do so, we don’t use any chemical of any kind on the cel to treat it! No liquid, No powder or anything like that. Our treatment cabinet was created to manipulate some atmospheric parameters like temperature, relative humidity, and also atmospheric pressure. We also replace some gas that exists in the air to stabilize, on a molecular level, the cellulose chain inside the cel.
This treatment guarantees
- Complete elimination of the vinegar smell.
- Triple the life span of your cel by putting back it’s molecular stability for a very, very long time! (if the cel is kept in right condition after treatment).
- Can reduce significantly the wavy undulations. (if the cel is under the phase 4 before treatment)
- Our system also makes it possible to know with precision at which phase a cel actually is, even if the vinegar syndrome hasn’t started yet (before phase 2.5)
We already have threatened more than 3000 cels in more than 65 various series/movies from almost every Japanese production studios. Series like Dragon Ball, Saint Seiya, Sailor Moon, and a lot of other Toei production series. Ghibli movies like Totoro, Mononoke, Laputa, etc… , we have also treated Original Backgrounds , Dougas and Gengas, some original shikishi from Myiazaki and Shingo Araki and other famous Japanese artist, but not only Japanese Production. Our system have also treated non Japanese cels like Disney cels from Jungle book, Alice in wonderland , Robin Hood,etc … All of them were treated successfully!
Video examples of our Vinegar Syndrome treatment
Treatment duration
It takes between 3 to 4 weeks for a full treatment depending on which phase your cel is. The sooner the treatment is done, the cheaper and the more effective it will be.
Prevention treatment
We also offer a prevention treatment. if the vinegar syndrome hasn’t started yet, this treatment will still extend significantly the time for the cel before the vinegar syndrome even starts. Plus, the cel won’t need a full treatment, so the duration of the treatment is shorter and the price is cheaper than a full vinegar syndrome treatment.
Contaminated cel information
if you want to treat one of your cel, just send us some pictures of it, front and back. (minimum resolution of the pictures : 1920 pixels)
Then, from the pictures we will be able to estimate the level of deterioration of your cel. We will contact you to give you a range of time and price for the treatment. If you agree with our estimate, you can send us your cel to our facility for further analyses.
In our facility, we will measure precisely the level of deterioration with our machine ( phase number ) and then we will be able to give you the exact time and price for the treatment of your cel that is always lower or equal to our estimate, like that, no bad surprises.
If you are agree with the treatment final invoice price, we will start the treatment and let you know when it is complete.
Treatment prices
There is no universal answer to it because a lot of parameters are involved here. Our prices are tailor made for each cel because it depends on a lot of factors :
- Level of deterioration : depending on which phase your cel is
- Number of layers that composed the cel
- Layers stuck together : if some layers are stuck together or a douga or a background, it takes more time to treat.
- Size of the cel : bigger the surface of the cel is and longer the treatment will be
- Type of acetate used for the “plastic” : tri-acetate is less complicated than bi-acetate for example
- Type of paint : depending on the studio, the paint used to make the cel can be more delicate to treat
Generally, for a, one layer, standard Serie size cel, it will start around 6 000 yens.
Treatment limitations :
Our Vinegar syndrome Treatment is not magical, we are using a custom made, laboratory cabinet created by scientist to do it and science has its limitations… So first of all, it is important to understand that we cannot reverse time… it means that if your cel has already some visual degradation due to the vinegar syndrome, we will stop the degradation process but we cannot make your cel look like new again.
Our treatment does not stop the vinegar syndrome reaction, it reset it. It means that after treatment, the vinegar syndrome reaction is back to phase 1. It is a very important difference, because your cel, even after treatment might get the vinegar syndrome back if you not keep it in right conditions , so it is very important to keep your cel after treatment always between 15 and 25 degree Celsius and between 40% and 50% of relative humidity.
- If your cel has already yellowing or losing its transparency (phase 4 or higher) our system cannot bring back the transparency.
- If you have multiple layers stuck together, the stuck areas might not get a full treatment, it means that the vinegar syndrome reaction cannot be reset entirely in this particular area, so it is possible that another treatment will maybe be necessary in several years if the vinegar syndrome comes back.
Vinegar Syndrome services
Vinegar Syndrome detection
In our conservation facility, by using our custom laboratory cabinet , we can detect and measure with precision if a cel is affected by the vinegar syndrome and at which phase of the reaction the cel actually is .
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