Hacettepe University, Institute of Sciences, Division of Forensic Science, Ankara, Turkiye.
Hacettepe University, Department of Chemistry, Ankara, Turkiye.
Sci Justice. 2023 May;63(3):364-368. doi: 10.1016/j.scijus.2023.04.001. Epub 2023 Apr 5.
The stamp markings on wooden surfaces, which are placed on trees and products including antiques, indicate the status of trees and involve identifying data regarding the products. Such markings are obliterated either to facilitate illegal logging or to conceal product information. Despite the wide literature on the restoration of obliterated characters on metal and polymer surfaces, the recovery of defaced characters on wooden surfaces appears to be understudied. Several reference texts in the forensic marks' examination literature suggest that water, water vapor, and alkaline solutions are useful in restoring the abraded markings on the wood. Since there does not seem to be any experimental study proving such success, this study aimed to fill this gap. This study conducted experimental research by using water, ethanol, ammonia, and chloroform to recover the scraped characters on samples obtained from walnut, beech, spruce, oak, and cedar trees. The cold-stamped characters, which were defaced at varying depths, were restored using vapor and liquid phases of four solvents. While the vapor phases of water, ethanol, and ammonia yielded good outcomes on all types of wooden surfaces, the liquid phases did not seem to be useful in the revisualization process. The response of the vapors, which varied between 62 and 220 s, depended on the type of wood. The restoration technique developed in this research offers the possibility of on-site usage, easy application, utilization of low-cost solvents, rapid recovery, and effectiveness on various wooden surfaces. Overall, the restoration methodology used in this research appears to be fruitful in retrieving identifying information on wooden samples.
木质表面的印章标记，通常放置在树木和包括古董在内的产品上，表明树木的状态，并涉及产品的识别数据。这些标记要么被故意抹去以方便非法采伐，要么被抹去以隐藏产品信息。尽管关于恢复金属和聚合物表面上已磨灭字符的文献很多，但在木质表面上恢复已损坏字符的研究似乎还不够充分。法医痕迹检验文献中的几本参考书籍表明，水、水蒸气和碱性溶液有助于恢复木材上磨损的标记。由于似乎没有任何实验研究证明这种方法的成功，因此本研究旨在填补这一空白。本研究通过使用水、乙醇、氨水和氯仿对从核桃、山毛榉、云杉、橡木和雪松树上获得的样本进行实验研究，以恢复刮擦的字符。使用四种溶剂的蒸汽相和液相恢复了不同深度被损坏的冷压字符。虽然水、乙醇和氨水的蒸汽相在所有类型的木质表面上都产生了良好的效果，但液相似乎在可视化过程中没有用处。蒸汽的反应时间在 62 到 220 秒之间变化，这取决于木材的类型。本研究中开发的恢复技术提供了现场使用、易于应用、使用低成本溶剂、快速恢复和在各种木质表面上有效性的可能性。总的来说，本研究中使用的恢复方法似乎在从木质样本中检索识别信息方面是有效的。
