I KNOW my photo-shopping abilities leave allot to be desired, but it's dark
thirty in the morning.

Anyway, this is more like what I was thinking...

"Chris Damico" wrote
Now that you mention it, using some dark or black "filler" on the pores
would have added a lot to it. Thanks for the suggestion; I hadn't
thought of that. I don't use mahogany a lot and now I remember that Norm
always seems to add it. However, in most of my pieces I try to work with
the grain to expose and highlight it. After putting a coat of BLO on the
piece and seeing the grain shimmer, I'm not sure if I could have
darkened it with filler anyway. But, something to keep in mind.

On cleaning, I specifically asked the owner about that. I didn't want to
do anything to it to "de-value" the piece. But she actually said she
wanted it cleaned. Now, I didn't remove any 'finish', I just polished
the brass and sewed the leather sheath back together so I'm not sure I
did enough to actually take away from it's value. I'm sure in a few
years it'll look the exactly same way!

Thanks again for the suggestions.