Gentlemen, is there a synthetic material easily obtainable in legitimate stores that could be used to fix the crossguard? I shudder to imagine myself boiling an explosive mix of exotic and flammable ingredients in our kitchen. I will be kicked out of the house by She Who Must Be Obeyed if I even mention doing something like that ("....eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog...")
The Syrian/Egyptian origin is entirely feasible: I have a Syrian Shamshir with very similar fuller arrangement. I cleaned he blade after I got it (was quite dirty and even had a faint patches of active rust) and did emergency oiling. I'll try to clean it better and may even try to etch it a bit to look for damascus pattern.
As to the wobbly handle, the scales are just a little wobbly: the lower rivet is not very secure and, I guess, the horn got a little shrunken and deformed after so many years. If I can pour some glue-ish compound into the crossguard, it wll certainly solve the scales problem as well.
|