18th Century Katar For Comment

[Jeff Pringle]

This katar has a nice old brown patina I am afraid if I clean it with sand paper it will get ruined.

You are right, sandpaper would mess with the patina. The safest approach would be to use a brush (toothbrush okay, natural bristle better) dry to knock off loose, fresh corrosion and then wax or oil as you prefer. Next step up in agressiveness is using the brush with a solvent like alcohol or acetone, this would remove old coating residues (also painted decorations, if there were any). Anything abrasive will start taking away patina, so as Jens said, slow and careful is the way to go.

[Jens Nordlunde]

Thanks Jeff, your advice is very good, and one must remember to start easy when a weapon have to be cleaned. You can always move to heavier tools, but don’t start with the heavy ones.

Jens

[Lew]

Well I got busy last night and used some 600 grit wet dry sand paper on the blade with water and the blade came out nice. It's no longer brown but I left it with some patina. The side bars are almost free of rust but the grip bars still have some brown patina left. I will post some pics this weekend when I have some good natural light to take them in.

Lew