CONSUMERS : Quake Alarm : Safety: More and more, Californians shaken by temblors are turning to experts to help them batten down the hatches.

Valerie Broeske sells baby products. Eric Lutz prepares museum exhibits. But, since the 7.5 Landers earthquake, both have spent much time telling people how to quake-proof the contents of their homes.

Broeske, who runs Safer-Baby, a Studio City shop that sells baby-proofing products, says she’s been overwhelmed with customers wanting to buy latches and catches. Designed to keep children out of cabinets and drawers, they also will help keep them shut during an earthquake. She has sold out of some items and had to reorder.

Lutz, who prepares exhibits at the Huntington Museum in San Marino, has fielded many calls from museum patrons asking how to secure ceramics and glassware to shelves. He recommends microcrystalline wax.

Both Broeske and Lutz say they always get an increase in such calls after any earthquake, but this time has been different.

“I never expected this volume,” Broeske says, explaining that her store’s in-home installation business has also increased since the large earthquakes last month. Her partner, Keith Noren, has gotten as many requests to quake-proof customers’ homes as he usually gets to baby-proof them. Most callers want large furniture and bookshelves anchored and upper cabinets securely latched.

Broeske recommends several models of latches that can be installed inside cabinets and drawers, among them the plastic Gerber drawer latch ($3.25 for a package of four), which also works for cabinet doors, and the First Years metal door latches ($4 for six).

In addition to baby-products stores, similar inside-locking latches for drawers and doors, called “positive” latches, also may be found at home supply outlets or recreational vehicle supply stores. They range in price from $2.50 for simple model to $15 for deluxe. Locking latches for the outside of cupboards also can be purchased at most hardware and building supply stores.

Microcrystalline wax, however, is not so easy to find.

A few Los Angeles art supply stores carry it, but most have 10-pound pieces (about $30) that would be more than anyone could possibly use. Even museums have problems buying it small quantities, Lutz says.

“The word is starting to get out about the wax,” says Lutz. “The microcrystalline wax is the best, but it doesn’t work for everything. It is very sticky and it bonds well, and it doesn’t penetrate the object you’re securing. It’s great for securing ceramics, decorative art objects or glass to plexiglass, marble pedestals and tabletops or glass shelves. But I wouldn’t use it on an 18th-Century wooden table. It wouldn’t change the color of the wood, but it would leave a residue that would be difficult to get off.”

Lutz says the clear microcrystalline wax works best on light-to-medium-weight objects, not on relatively tall or large objects: “It wouldn’t be good for a three-foot vase because of its high center of gravity. An earthquake creates so much momentum that it would just shake back and forth.”

A large vase, says Lutz, might be better protected by weighting it inside with lead.

Linda Strauss, associate conservator of decorative arts and sculpture at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, says the museum staff has tested microcrystalline wax and has used it on occasion for specific objects.

“We couldn’t guarantee it would work for everybody under all circumstances,” she says.

Strauss cautions that the particularly sticky wax should be used sparingly: “A little bit will hold a lot and people should restrain themselves from thinking that more would be better. A small vase needs only three little balls the size of a pea in a triangle on the bottom to hold it.”

Strauss does not recommend using microcrystalline wax on very thin crystal or porcelain, nor for waxing cups to saucers. “You don’t just lift off the object (after the wax has sealed to the shelf),” she explains. “You have to cut through it with a plastic fishing line. You slide the line between the shelf and the wax and it cuts through it.”

If you have several friends and neighbors who want to secure some ceramic or glass objects, you could get one of the large pieces of microcrystalline wax and divide it, suggests Irene Niersbach of Flax art supplies in Westwood, which carries 10-pound blocks.

“Anything that has pliability to it is better than nothing,” says Niersbach. “But microcrystalline is the safest because it is a neutral product. And others don’t have the same tackiness.”

For securing ceramics and glassware, Flax also sells a plastic adhesive called Hold It ($3.89) and a sculpting clay called Roma Plastilina ($6.95 for a two-pound block).

“Roma Plastilina doesn’t have the same tackiness as microcrystalline wax,” says Niersbach.

It, too, may leave a hard-to-remove residue or mark on wood surfaces, she adds. “But it’s a nice way to secure good pieces of porcelain and pottery you want to hold on to. You just warm some of it up in your hands until it’s pliable, roll it into a ball, then put it on the bottom of the item. A normal goblet would need Roma about the size of a quarter on the bottom.”

Roma Plastilina, gray/green or white in color, comes in four grades. No. 1 is softest, No. 4 hardest. For securing pottery or glassware, Niersbach suggests No. 2.

She does not recommend using floral clay to secure objects to shelves “because it dries and cracks after a period of time.”

Until this week, Doug Adams of Conservation Materials Ltd., a Sparks, Nev., distributor of Multiwax W-835, the microcrystalline wax used by many museums, sold the wax in five-pound blocks.

But Adams, responding to inquiries from the public for smaller portions, now will offer a one-pound size for $15, which includes shipping and handling. The firm will accept mail orders only, and ships by UPS to addresses, not post office boxes.

(To order a one-pound block of Multiwax W-835, send a check or money order to Conservation Materials Ltd., 1165 Marietta Way, Sparks, Nev. 89431.)

Home Security

To use microcrystalline wax in securing ceramics or glassware to surfaces:

* Pick off a small amount of wax, about the size of a grain of rice, from the block.

* Knead until soft, and stick onto the base of the artifact you’re securing. Use at least four bits of wax equally around the object’s base. Larger items may take as many as a dozen or so wax bits.

* Predetermine where you want the artifact on the shelf. Then apply it to the surface or shelf with just a bit of downward pressure and a slight twisting motion to mash the wax bits and help them “grab.” It is also wise to have someone steady the shelf while you are putting the artifact in place.

* Use caution when you want to remove the artifact from a surface. Once “sealed” with wax bits, it has a tendency to hold to the shelf. Remove either by slipping a piece of monofilament fishing line between the shelf and the wax bits or by twisting the object and gently pulling upward.

Source: Conservation Materials Ltd.