Hello Leif,
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Nope, I believe he meant 1790s-1810s. Part of why I solicited dissenting opinions. Though he may have only been referring to the blade.
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I was also focusing on the blade: IMHO it is very unlikely to be 200 years or older (based on workmanship, etc.). It does seem to have some age though and also some wear.
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Yes, I agree, I looks like the ganjo was definitely damaged at some point. However, since brass is present on both sides of the blade I think that maybe there was something to the base of the blade as well?
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It's possible. To me it looks more like a pretty sloppy job though which probably was supposed to fix it to the blade again.
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I'm not sure I'm skilled/equipped enough to remove solder. Removing the hilt might be near my current limits...
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I'd probably only try to remove the solder smeared onto the blade surface - that will interfere with polishing and etching! It's rather soft, so it's not that difficult. However, I'd strongly recommend an exploratory etch to verify that the effort is really worth it!
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To be honest I was mostly intending to just do the whole increasing grades of sand paper over the blade into 0000 steal wool,
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Yes, that will help a lot! (However, it's much easier to work on the bare blade rather than trying to work around the clamp/etc.)
BTW, I don't think steel wool will do much good once you move into the finest sandpaper/stones. Use a polishing compound if you really want a perfect finish - usually not needed though, especially before the first etch this is almost certainly overkill. No power tools - only elbow grease!
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Would it be worth trying to etch the blade? I thought lamination was fairly rare on pieces like this.
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I'm pretty confident that this blade is laminated - give it a try!
Regards,
Kai