Antique Blades: Ulahn's - Pellius's Blade Cleaning Threads.

Ouch!
Time to dull the edge a bit with some fine grade paper on a block.
Worked for me.

Acetone and cotton tips will remove much dirt from pits.

Mystery scabbard dirt: Maybe consider to use Ren Wax when your done. I mean totally done.
Oil will get sticky. Dirt does not have a hold on Ren Wax. Falls right off.
Ren Wax has another effect too: When used, one should first clean the blade with acetone or alcohol.
Go at the blade until the rag or paper stays clean. Apply Ren Wax and see how much dirt still remained in the pores of the steel. Even after repeated cleaning with acetone the Ren Wax rag will get quite dirty. At least mine do.
If you want a really clean blade use this stuff. It's from the same company that makes the wax and it too works wonders:





Cheers.

July 27, 2020

Greetings all.

Please forgive my recent absence, and the lack of updates on this project.  Various personal responsibilities and commitments kinda ganged up on me over the past few weeks, and I just didn't have time to work on the project.  Thankfully, I was able to spend some time on it this evening.  It was very nice to get back to it, even if only for a couple of hours.  


Overview of the night's progress.

First, I went over the foible again to clean it up a bit more.  


High grit here, just to try to coax a little more patina out of the pores of the steel.

Then I spent around an hour carefully cleaning up some of the persistent patina around the fuller termination and bringing the ridges back up to a sharper transition.  This area must have suffered during its service career, as the termination was gouged and washed out, seemingly by a brief but spiteful scrubbing session with that big sharpening rock Conan the Barbarian used.  I suspect this marked an historical encounter rather than a modern overzealous polishing.  The deeper gouges were thankfully relatively few, and seemed to have been washed out a bit by the same polishing that smoothed away the crisp lines originally crafted by the forge.  


I'm slowly starting to work up a sharper fuller transition, and lighten the bite marks left from black patina gnawing at the steel for a couple of centuries.


Not bad in photos, but the eye can better discern the varying sharpness of the ridges.  For better or worse, the deepest sanding gouges of old have been softened significantly. 

Anyway, I worked on excising some of the persistent glass-hard patina from its impressive system of defensive trenches, and then tried to sharpen up the transition ridges themselves.  Similar to the historical service sharpening marks I encountered several weeks back, I felt a mild pang of guilt repairing the damage done here, as it may well have been part of the saber's historical use.  I comforted myself by reasoning that, after I had cleaned the blade, it would no longer be apparent that the gouges were historical, and would subsequently appear to be the result of some neophyte's reckless scraping.  (Wait, what's the definition of irony?)


The earlier mottled appearance has given way to more isolated pockets of patination.  Next I will try to reduce the magnitude of the remaining pits and spots, especially along the edge.

My efforts did sharpen the overall appearance, though photos don't seem to capture much of an improvement.

 
The areas above and below the fuller termination are especially fragile, yet were in particular need of intervention.  I will continue to use a light touch here, and just keep revisiting and repeating.

Next, I began the process of cleaning the middle of the blade.  I tried something just a bit different this time.  I started with higher grits (400 and 320) to lift the widespread film of black surface patina.  I then spent some time on the numerous more egregious spots with 150 grit.  I downshifted again to 80 grit to do an overall cleaning, using long light strokes in the hopes of dislodging some of the more persistent gunk.  Then I worked my way back up through the grits.  I again left a gradual transition working edge at the forte.  The middle will need some more work, but I could see improvement.  


As we say in this neck of the woods, I still have a ways to go.

Again, photos didn't seem to capture much progress.


As always, I tried to keep a soft transition between the general areas of work.

I snapped a couple of pictures.  Comparing them to the last ones I posted, I suppose some progress can be seen.  If you look really closely. Probably.

I sincerely hope to get back to working on this project every other day or so for the next couple of weeks.  At that rate, I should near the finish line fairly soon.  


This wretched hive of scum and villainy is starting to loom large.

Also, a big thanks to Uhlan for encouragement and a bit of prodding to get this project back on the front burner.  I really enjoy working on it, and was missing it more than I realized.  

Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Cheers.

 

Very nice!

Glad you found time again for the sabre.
As this thread is way better than mine we must save it from the digital black hole and get it pinned with a bunch of great big pins once you're done.

,,The forte seemed to come a lot cleaner this time, despite me basically doing the same thing I did last time. Sometimes things just seem to work better for no discernible reason. Weird.. but I'll take it. ''

I had that experience too. Seems wierd, but there it is.
Also noticed that sometimes working with say 120 on pitting did less than going over them with a higher grid.
Very strange.
The sabre is going to look awsome. Some pitting remaining, but compared to the state it was in before you went to work, it really is going to be looking great.
The final polish will also blend in some of the pitting, so all in all, the final result will be even better.

Kindergarten with social distancing? I mean little kids? That's like herding the herd of cats thing. You pluck two out of the curtains and the third is licking the floor.
Missy is going to have an interesting time. :)
Wish you and fam the very best though.

Cheers.

August 22, 2020

Part 1 of 2

This was the first full week of school for my son, which meant it was the first full week of everyone in the house waking up at times of day I had long forgotten existed.  It was a very exciting week of sustained effort, filled with novel challenges and rewarding endeavors.  So when Friday evening finally arrived, mommy and kindergartener went to bed early.  I probably should've done the same, but I instead seized nearly four hours of solitude to work on this project.  

I first worked the edge, which until now I had conveniently ignored for the most part.  I gave it a light but thorough scrub with 120 and 220 grit.  





Then I smoothed and evened up the ricasso, forte, and middle with higher grits (320 and 400).  I even made a few passes at the foible, and cleaned up the spine while I was at it.  I used long even strokes here, with a lot of oil and turning the paper frequently.  I wanted to get a good clean cut on every pass, aiming to even the finish rather than clean the steel.  It might have been tedious had I not been so excited to be nearing a milestone toward completion.















I then turned my attention to the hilt.



The poor leather on the grip looked as if it was subjected to "repair" by an impatient preteen distracted by a really full bladder. I'm not sure what actually happened here - maybe the repair looked great way back when.  I just resigned myself to accept it as-is for the time being.  I currently have no tools, materials, or the knowledge needed to make a decent repair.  No sense making it worse. 



The brass guard, pommel, and back strap were another matter.  To my eye, the hilt design is quite beautiful, and contributes much to the character of the sword.  It deserves to be glorious.





This particular hilt suffered a break to the larger bar at the guard, which was professionally repaired.  There were numerous casting marks and imperfections in the brass as well.  I wanted to preserve these, but they had become filled with nastiness over the years.  



To return some dignity to the sword while preserving the honor of its history, I set out to carefully clean the brass.  I tried less invasive methods a couple of months ago with little success.  So tonight I carefully cleaned the hilt with 1000 grit sandpaper.  Even at this grit, it was pretty easy to remove brass, so I went slow and gently.  While nothing like a professional job, I was satisfied with the results.



Included are a few pics of the hilt in its "raw" sanded state, as well as the mostly finished forte and middle.

End part 1 of 2





 

That is one beautiful saber, that.

August 23, 2020

The Scabbard









The sword itself isn't quite done.  Nonetheless, I decided to move on to begin work on the scabbard.  I'd like to say there was some higher level purpose driving this decision, and if I think of one, I'll be sure to edit this post to share it.



The scabbard was in overall good shape, with only one real dent near the drag.  









It also featured an apparently factory installed dirt-colored coating, presumably to protect it from corrosion.  I suppose it may have also been intended to camouflage an otherwise shiny piece of bullet-attracting sparkle.  However, having googled various images of Nineteenth Century European cavalry and beholding their flamboyant color-saturated brass and bling hyper-dazzle uniforms, I kinda doubt it.  Dunno.  Whatever its primary purpose was, it absolutely crushed its secondary purpose of making the sheathed sword look like filthy gutter trash.  

Even so, I was fully prepared to leave the compost hued finish in place out of respect for history and whatnot.  However, a largish portion of the finish had worn off of the lower part of the scabbard, giving it a bit of a sickly and neglected look.  After some consideration, I resolved to remove the old coating of.. stuff.  

I did not come to this decision as lightly as my commentary might imply.  Unlike cleaning off a patina of neglect, removing this coating would remove that part of the sword's history.  In the end, I decided that, while the finish may have been historically applied, it was also historically damaged beyond repair.  

In tonight's cleaning session, I cleaned the lower suspension ring with 80 and 220 grit just to get down to the steel.  The brown finish came off pretty easily.  



I also cleaned a portion of the scabbard between the rings.  Here I used 80 grit wrapped around a paint stir-stick that I picked up from Home Depot.  Since the geometry of the scabbard was very simple and robust, the cleaning went quickly and easily - even without a true workbench or clamps to secure the scabbard.  The stir stick really made getting down into the little nooks and crevices super easy.

 

I was not really surprised that there was black patination on the scabbard where the brown coating had worn away.  However, I also found some under the coating where I cleaned it off.  Weird.  I'm hoping that it will be easier to clean here than it was on the sword blade.



Next session, I'll use higher grits on this area to try to remove some of that black patina.  I'll be sure to let you guys know how it goes.

That's all I have for today.  Thanks for taking the time to read this.