Axe for Restoration.

[Indianajones]

Hi all,
as I have a bit experience in restoring, it does like like the oxidation on this piece is active, hence the lightgreen color. Leaving it like this would result in almost weekly wiping away the fallen oxidation from the shelf its on.

Though if anyone cares to know my opinion, I would just subtle wash and scrub the piece with a scrubsponge (those with a green scrublayer) but leaving a green layer on and after it dried try to fixate the left green surface with a resinspray which is used for fixating charcoaldrawings (lucid fluid available in art n paintshops). This fluid will be sucked into the green oxidation and does not leave a coating on top, but it does change the color of the green into a darker shade.

If the object is found in a salty type of soil it may have to be left soaking in a bath of water first to (try to) remove/dissolve all the salt.

Using acid til the bare metal is visible -as you might suggested- is irreversable and may degrade the object to a lump of metal/'just a metal axe'.

Good luck!