ABSTRACT
The severe and widespread corrosion evident on Canadian and American outdoor military monuments in the North Eastern "rust-belt" area of North America is a significant and deplorable problem. An inspection of the situation in and around Kingston, Ontario in 2000 revealed that twentieth century cannons were particularly affected by the corrosion. When in military service, they last almost indefinitely due to the daily stripping, cleaning, and oiling of the pieces by their crews. It is a far different situation when a field gun becomes a monument. First it is de-militarized by having all
moving pieces welded together until immovable then it is often parked beside a heavily
salted street. Maintenance is abandoned forever.

This paper will present some typical problems associated with artifacts exposed in the North Eastern "rust-belt" and discuss remedial measures that have been implemented to alleviate the corrosion burden suffered by these historical memorabilia. Keywords: Outdoor monuments, corrosion prevention compounds (CPCs), corrosion of artifacts, North Eastern "rust-belt", military pieces

INTRODUCTION
In military service, many artillery pieces are older than the gunners who serve them. Yet they remain corrosion free despite being towed down salted highways, dragged through frozen mud, and abused in all weather conditions. Why do they survive this constant abuse for decades? It's due to the daily maintenance they receive. After every use, and often daily just for training purposes without being used, they are stripped down to their individual pieces, cleaned, oiled and put back together with a fresh film of gun oil.

Monument creation dooms pieces to corrode. The problem begins when an artillery piece, tank or gun is first taken out of military use and a monument is created from it. They must be de-militarized so that there is no chance of the weapon ever being fired again. This is most often accomplished by having a welder fuse all the moveable pieces together into one piece with a series of welds. This also prevents any possibility of accidental injury caused by heavy pieces closing on little fingers with huge forces. Welding the components in this fashion also dooms the piece to rapidly corrode to
nothing. The piece can never again be stripped and oiled. It will, however, most often be placed outside and exposed to acid rain summers and severe winters. Typically, in the Northern areas of the continent it is placed next to a busy, heavily salted street or highway, because the sponsors of these monuments want them to be visible.

Maintenance is then, in many cases, abandoned forever. Then time, the elements and the catalysts of wind, acid rain and road salt begin their destructive work. When corrosion becomes a hazard, accessories such as lights, anchor points for tarpaulin straps, and handles are removed to eliminate injury to climbing children from jagged, corroded edges.

Old vs. recent military pieces

Ironically perhaps, the older cannons seem to present less corrosion problems. On the Royal Military College (RMC) campus in Kingston, for example, there are numerous rust perforations on a Centurion battle tank only taken out of service in the 1970s, while two Russian cast iron cannons from the Crimean War (1854-1856) are virtually untouched by corrosion.  Older pieces are far simpler in con