SURLY SOFERET

BS"D


Somebody, who I'm sure had the best of intentions, used plenty of Sello tape along the edge of the parchment here to tightly secure it to the roller.
Please don't ever do this. Seriously. Call your local sofer instead.

To get a really good look at the tape (which is clear), click on the image & selected the largest available size at my Flickr page. The tape isn't the white patches pictured here - that's more parchment added after the Torah was originally written (over the drill-holes & knots, I might say). The tape is around the edges of those patches.

& at least they are parchment patches - until I got the tape off, I wasn't sure - it looked like interfacing (stitch witchery).

The problem with this is that any kind of tape will make the Torah scroll unfit for use because of the unkosher animal hooves & other bits used in glue manufacture. Mister Ed does not belong slathered on your Sefer.

Another problem is that the residue left behind, even when completely removed, will discolour the parchment over time (if it hasn't already).
So...pleasePleasePLEASE don't ever do this. It may seem like a good idea at the time, but it's actually always a bad idea.
:)

So I did manage to get all the adhesive residue off both the parchment & the wood, thank G@d. It created a fair bit of dust, which is bad for the parchment - it grinds in & wears away the letters - unless you are careful to remove it properly. Laying clean, acid-free paper over the letter helps, but there's always some parchment or sawdust that finds its way onto the face of the Torah. DON'T BLOW! Not even gently. You'd be surprised at how much spit hits a Torah just from people reading it, so blowing is a no-no. Instead, I use a blower-bulb &/or an extremely soft goat-hair brush. Soft, because even hair can scratch the letters & goat, because they're kosher, man!

It's really handy that I'm also a professional artist & was a gemmologist before I was lead to sofrut - I came equipped with the knowledge of how to use many tools. I even owned some. I can't tell you how relieved I was when I figured out how to use some of my gemological tools (blower-bulb, diamond tweezers, loupe, etc) in sofrut! They were really expensive, so it wasn't a waste after all!
:D




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