Kris Restoration...

[Rick]

Originally Posted by Spunjer

rick,
the galgal/gunk is rock solid. are there any solutions you can pour to soften this up?

Is there a lot of it ?

Maybe the thing to do would be to clean and re-heat the tang and try to reset it in the handle in the proper orientation adding some new galgal if needed , the old mastic may still get soft with heat (or it might not).

The problems with pouring stuff into the hole could be many , if you used hot oil you might ruin the hilt for re-mounting by making it too slick .
Any kind of spirits would degrade the finish .

Possibly a narrow straight chisel or chisel sharpened screwdriver could be used to get between the mastic and the wood and gently remove it .
You could also heat the implement .