Hurricane Katrina damaged blade restored
 

This sad case is a Persian jambiya that took a long bath during Katrina nine years ago.

Fortunately this is one of only three or four pieces from my collection that got wet. I was really, really, lucky!

The grip was stained and cracked into two pieces, the lizard skin covered sheath is still yet to be dealt with. I think it will be recoverable with some TLC.

I cleaned and stoned out carefully the rust pitting and stains from the flood. It's been in storage for a while now, so since I was in the mood to do some etching (see the Mongolian knife posted earlier) I thought it would be a good time to tackle this.

I made one more good pass with very fine abrasives, de-greased it with acetone, and waxed the tang.

Since this blade originally had no surface texture, I brushed the mordant on to each side in one clean stroke. This highlighted the pattern and slightly darkened it for contrast.

After neutralization, I did a quick WD-40 wipedown, heated the blade lightly and hot waxed it with Renaissance Wax.

What do you think?

Great! Love the wootz - you certainly made it pop out! :eek:

Until I found this forum, I felt this piece was an irretrievable basket case!

I will have to look for the other couple of formerly submerged pieces.