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We discovered an error in [our] Sefer Torah this Shabbat. The error...involves a Tav that should be a Hay.
There are two aspects to dealing with this; the theoretical and the practical.
The theoretical side represents hours and hours of study. Before you go anywhere near fixing a Torah, you've got to know why this is a total disaster, for instance:
and you have to learn the several thousand other potential disasters that a sofer has to know how to avoid.
However, the practical side of a fix like this is actually very easy. It's a tiny bit of knife work and a tiny bit of ink work.
I've put in the hours and hours of study, and we live in a digital world. Suppose Esther lives hundreds of miles away from any sofer, and her Torah has this problem. She takes a picture of the problem in the Torah and emails it to me. I can look at it, and chances are I'll know how to fix it. If she knows how to use a knife and ink, I can send her something like this:*
and she can fix the problem. She can be my hands over hundreds of miles. If necessary, we could use a webcam, so that I can see exactly what she's doing.
Of course ideally Esther's community would have a fully-trained sofer. But in the real world, I think this could be the next best thing. It's better than reading from a non-kosher Torah, and it's better than having the Torah languish unused until a sofer happens to come to town.
I think this could happen. I could take a day and teach people how to use these:
and how NOT to use them (can you identify the things there that you must NEVER NEVER use on a Torah?).
In a day, someone is not going to learn all the rules about how to fix letters (what do you do with something like that thing to the right? do you need to do anything?), but I believe they can learn enough that they can make basic repairs under remote supervision.
One might say that letting half-trained people loose on Torahs is a dreadful idea, with unlimited potential for havoc to be unleashed. However, of course one would teach boundaries. Fences around tricky areas. When not to attempt something. The importance of not overestimating one's ability. And it might very well be better than the present state of affairs, where entirely untrained people attempt repairs that are quite horrifying.
* NOTE: Don't try this at home. This is not Torah writing. This is Times New Roman. It would not look quite like this on a Torah.
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That's my vision. I reckon I can teach someone to do this in a day, if they've got some arts-and-crafts background. Anyone want to have a bit of a Manhattan guinea-pig day?
We discovered an error in [our] Sefer Torah this Shabbat. The error...involves a Tav that should be a Hay.
There are two aspects to dealing with this; the theoretical and the practical.
The theoretical side represents hours and hours of study. Before you go anywhere near fixing a Torah, you've got to know why this is a total disaster, for instance:
and you have to learn the several thousand other potential disasters that a sofer has to know how to avoid.
However, the practical side of a fix like this is actually very easy. It's a tiny bit of knife work and a tiny bit of ink work.
I've put in the hours and hours of study, and we live in a digital world. Suppose Esther lives hundreds of miles away from any sofer, and her Torah has this problem. She takes a picture of the problem in the Torah and emails it to me. I can look at it, and chances are I'll know how to fix it. If she knows how to use a knife and ink, I can send her something like this:*
and she can fix the problem. She can be my hands over hundreds of miles. If necessary, we could use a webcam, so that I can see exactly what she's doing.
Of course ideally Esther's community would have a fully-trained sofer. But in the real world, I think this could be the next best thing. It's better than reading from a non-kosher Torah, and it's better than having the Torah languish unused until a sofer happens to come to town.
I think this could happen. I could take a day and teach people how to use these:
and how NOT to use them (can you identify the things there that you must NEVER NEVER use on a Torah?).
In a day, someone is not going to learn all the rules about how to fix letters (what do you do with something like that thing to the right? do you need to do anything?), but I believe they can learn enough that they can make basic repairs under remote supervision.One might say that letting half-trained people loose on Torahs is a dreadful idea, with unlimited potential for havoc to be unleashed. However, of course one would teach boundaries. Fences around tricky areas. When not to attempt something. The importance of not overestimating one's ability. And it might very well be better than the present state of affairs, where entirely untrained people attempt repairs that are quite horrifying.
* NOTE: Don't try this at home. This is not Torah writing. This is Times New Roman. It would not look quite like this on a Torah.
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That's my vision. I reckon I can teach someone to do this in a day, if they've got some arts-and-crafts background. Anyone want to have a bit of a Manhattan guinea-pig day?
Old readers will have met this idea before, but for those who are new on the Jenscene, I'll offer it again.
It's a good idea to wrap the scroll in something before putting it in the case; it protects it from dust and other airborne yuk, and to some degree from moisture. R' Askotzky at stam.net recommends wax paper. Some sellers will roll them up for you in plastic wrap. 
This applies particularly if the case is openwork, even more particularly if it's going to get painted over. On the whole, it's better to take the mezuzah down before painting.
And when it was finally extracted from the case, see what had happened!
Left: it's not nice to roll it with the writing on the outside. Neither is it nice to roll it top to bottom. It's supposed to be rolled side to side; if you roll it top to bottom and then hang it, the writing lies sideways instead of being upright.
Oops. This is supposed to read ve-sar me-hem, but some sort of lapse in concentration has caused the scribe to miss out the "me" and cut straight to the "hem," realising that something was wrong partway through the hey.
A bit of blotting paper is used to take up as much of the wet ink as possible. One doesn't have to do this, but it makes it easier later. Unlike marker pens, Torah ink sits on top of the parchment, and doesn't soak all the way through, so it can be scraped off quite easily. It's very like a kitchen spill - scraping off a lot of yuk once it's dried is hard work and messy, and it's much easier to mop up as much as you can while it's still wet. 
Some scribes make two little marks in pencil, one above the mistake and one in the margin, so they'll know where to come back to when the ink is dry. Without some sort of marker, finding mistakes later is a bit like 
Erasing tools. From left to right: electric eraser, #10 surgical scalpel, bone folder, rose thorns, plastic eraser.
Once the mistake is dry, the remaining ink is scraped off. The electric eraser has a specially abrasive type of eraser in it, which makes quick work of the job (see below). For tiny mistakes, or delicate areas where the electric won't fit, one can use a surgical scalpel with a good sharp blade (see right). You may have heard that one can't use metal tools on a Torah, because ordinary metals have associations with war and hurting people. But surgical scalpels are used to save lives, not take them, so that makes a difference. Other scribes use gold knives or glass shards, for the same reason.
The surface is usually a bit ruffled after this, which makes it hard to write on, so it is smoothed and burnished with a bone folder or other burnishing tool. If the surface is very bad, powdered gum sanderac may be added, which stops the ink misbehaving. Then the guideline is marked back in. An awl is a sensible tool for this, but a rose thorn is a traditional non-metal alternative. Both are sharp enough to mark the surface without being so sharp they will cut through it.
Finally, the proper letter is written in, always by copying it from a 
One does not use correction fluid.
One of them had "Ramsem" instead of "Ramses" - you know, as in Rameses, as in Egypt. This was probably because "s" and "m" look quite similar and the original scribe wasn't all that focused. In any case, it now reads "Ramses" like it should.
