I need to know how to remove the scabbard bands from an Eickhorn Diplomats dagger. Has anyone got any ideas how to do this without damaging them. They are silver plated so heating them up could discolour them???

How are they normally held on?

Any help really appreciated as im stuck to say the least..

I believe they are pressed on. to put on a band you could put the scabbard in the freezer and the bands in hot water. Which would slightly shrink the diameter of the scabbard and enlarge the band. Since you want to remove the bands maybe there's a way to reverse the procedure. Maybe try putting it in the freezer and see if the bands loosen up. If not try putting under hot water. I don't think it would hurt the finish but, wait to see what others say.

Thanks for that I might try really hot water on the bands after being frozen and see what happens. The bands on the army scabbard came right off with a bit of pressure by hand!.

Any other ideas?

I tried the freezer, then boiling hot water on the bands several times with absolutely no luck.

In the end I used a vice to hold the dipomatic scabbard (because it was absolutely knackared apart from the bands) and I got one of those flexible wall filling tools that had a wide thin metal blade and big rubber grip. Using a woodern mallet I hit each of the bands a few times until they came off.

Absolutely no damage to them at all!

My donor scabbard was an early army Eickhorn that was silver plated like the Govt oficials ones. Tapped the bands into place using the woodern mallet and tool as described above.

Perfect fit on a perfect scabbard from the same maker and it is 100% in every way so I am really pleased with the end result with no damage to the bands or the new scabbard.

Only problem now is that I have a minty early Eickhorn army dager with no scabbard but small price to pay really

They are Silver soldered on.Regards: James

But I guess not??

I guess you mean a GO as there are no known original Eickhorn diplos. If not you either have a very rare dagger or a fake.

Sorry my mistake you are right its a G/O dagger I allways get the two confused as to what way the eagle faces.

Should have saved yourself the trouble as you now have a GO scabbard with the wrong bands on it GO scabbard bands look more like the ones on lightening bolt navy scabbards nothing like army scabbard bands IMO you were better with no bands than the parts mess you have created

Sorry just reread the thread and realised you put the GO bands on the Army scabbard please ignore my previous comment

The correct bands were taken off the old rusty GO scabbard. The correct eickhorn army scabbard had the army bands removed and the correct original GO ones put on it. Its 100% if I posted a picture here there is no way to tell the difference it is all period parts from the same maker.