yes, thanks, jim. your good will means a lot.
anyway, while oiling the blade, i of course held it by the grip. the cord wrap started to crumble & powder, broke in a number of places and fell off. the resin/varnish that held it all was powdered. cord was not salvageable.
the wood underneath was a it rough and there is a honking great flat iron staple more like a headed cotter pin that had been hammered in one side & out the other, then the 'legs' bent over the wood. looks like it was to hold it all together as there is a large split in the wood. been there i guess since the beginning. looks like the wood split when they rammed the handle onto the tang & peened it. or might have been a field repair. maybe why the grip is a tad short. that staple has been there a while.
some of the tang was showing thru the split tho there are no gaps or hollows. the tang showing was patinated but no red rust.
as it's not a major piece, i've further stabilized the split with HV acrylic superglue and re-wrapped the hilt with some brown cotton cord approx. the same dia. as the stuff that came off. i'll see what i have to re-varnish it with later today or so. applied some leather dressing to the leather over the pommel, it was pretty dry.
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