40 years in a box in boulder WA Australia

[Pippo]

Opened after 40 years in a box in the gold mining town of boulder, hence the fine powder red dust. Ill start gently cleaning with soft brush to remove dust. Luckily areas very dry so hopefully no major damage.

[Bazza]

A-M-A-Z-I-N-G...  In the West Australian desert!!!  I know a bloke who found a saiha Kotetsu in Marble Bar 40-ish years ago.  There might once have been a modest collection somewhere 'out West'.

 

BaZZa.

[uwe]

Looks not that bad 👍

[Pippo]

Back is predust, front post dust off. The dust is quite fine. Im using ww1 army officers clothes brushes to remove dust but any thoughts on final removal of dust, just a soft cloth and patience?? 

[Bugyotsuji]

I would use a vacuum cleaner with a soft bush at low-medium power, just touching lightly. Those strings look flimsy though...

[Pippo]

Yep might try and source a better vacuum to get this dust on the material underneath up and trying to keep everything intact, no rust on this due to the very dry storage but that's made some of the string fibre joins very fragile

[Bencld]

That red dust gets everywhere. I was there in 2013 and I’m still cleaning it out of my ute, nose and ears !

[Iekatsu]

Interesting find, You must feel like an archaeologist.