Sewar
 

Hello,
Jut got the sewar in the photos below and would like to know what kind of wood is the hilt made of?!
Any ideas are welcomed! :)
Marius

Hi Marius,

could be kemuning wood, difficult to say because it's so dark patinated. BTW, it's a recent fake, so please send it to me, I will dispose it free for you! ;) :D Nice piece!

Regards,
Detlef

it did remind me of the 'bone' cockatoo head tumbuk lada pieces we commented on in the past. however this one looks a LOT better. i also will offer to dispose of it with proper respect and lengthy ceremony (will take about 20 years or more) if you send it to me instead of him.

ref. thread HERE

Here my honest sewar collection for comparison!

Thank you for your comments!

I know the Parrot-head sewar quite well as I had one myself... and was quite fond of it... for a while... :o (I liked the writings on the blade)

So I think I will keep this one too... for a while... and when I will decide to dispose it off, I may ask for your most kind assitance (for the sake of environment of course).

;)

PS: I have no idea about wood but in the photos of Kemuning wood that I saw, I couldn't discern the parallel stripes of lighter texture my hilt displays. :shrug:

After browsing through hundreds of photos on the web, the closest match appears to be MAKASSAR EBONY.... maybe?! :shrug:

Have a look here: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=kemuning or here for example: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=kemuning

Very interesting! Yes, it definitely could be Kemuning as it appears there are several varieties of Kemuning, some darker, some lighter, and some with stripes.

Thank you Detlef! :)

What do you think about Makassar Ebony?!

You are welcome Marius! :)

Actually it doesn't look like makassar to me but more a patina form of the outer part of narra tree burl. Quite prized in the region.

Nice Marius.

I doubt that this wood is either kemuning or makassar ebony --- pic of makassar ebony below.

I do not know narra wood, in fact I've never heard of it, but I do not know names of S.E. Asian woods from outside of Jawa and Bali.

It could be sono kembang maybe, but it would need to have been quarter sawn to present that grain pattern.

If it is a root wood, or wood taken from a crotch or trunk burl it should have a high degree of chatoyancy, I cannot judge this from the photo. I doubt that it is from root, burl or crotch because the grain seems too regular. If quarter sawn it will probably have low chatoyancy or none at all, as opposed to the high chatoyancy we see in naturally distorted grain.

Hello Marius,

like Alan I would rule out Makassar Ebony.

Very interesting!
Now even if I don't get an accurate answer (and I realize it would be impossible to get an accurate answer based on a fairly poor quality photo), I am sure I can learn a lot about some exotic wood.
:) Thank you for your help!

Please review http://www.wood-database.com/narra/ where some interesting wood detail is outlined ...This wood is apparently the worlds most expensive. :)

Regarding narra wood, the closer to the center one gets, the redder it gets and the further away from the center, the browner it gets.

Paduk wood, narra's African cousin, is totally red like the inside of the narra tree.

Narra is all over the Philippines/Indonesia/Malaysia, but it is a nearly endangered and is no longer shipped as easily as once before. Other groups may call it under different local names. Most Moro scabbards up to the early 20th century were made of this wood, and I have noticed that Indonesians and Malayians used this wood once as well.

Seems as if narra and sono kembang are one and the same.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterocarpus_indicus

I didn't realise that sono kembang was the same as amboyna burl. I've used amboyna burl for knife handles, and I did not recognise it as sono kembang. The sono kembang that I am used to seeing is sono that has been either quarter sawn or rift sawn, if the wood was from a sono burl, or from a sono root system, in Jawa it would called "gembol", that is "sono gembol".

Still, we must understand the distinction between quarter sawn heartwood, and wood taken from a burl or from a root system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_sawing

As Battara has mentioned, as we come closer to the center of a log of wood, the more intense the colour becomes, in the trunk of a tree we have the sapwood on the outside, which is normally white, and the heartwood on the inside which can be a variety of colours. Even with black ebony, the sapwood is white.

However, in burls and root systems the outer wood is often not white, as is sapwood, but just a lighter shade of the wood that is towards the center.

This sewar hilt might look different in the hand, but what I can see in the photos is a grain pattern that is typical of quarter sawn wood, not of a burl, and not of a root.

Think about this:- jati gembol, or gembol jati, is teak burl. It can be a very beautiful wood, but ordinary teak is about as exciting as rolled oats for breakfast. Another example is walnut, the wood from the trunk is a very plain grain, except where something like a crotch or an injury distorts the grain, but good burl walnut --- which is now almost impossible to get in decent size pieces --- is truly exceptional wood.

Burl and root wood looks very different to wood taken from a trunk or a major branch.

Here are some pics of amboyna burl:-

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=a...HYpqCEAQsAQIHw

Here are some pics of quarter sawn wood:-

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=a...awn+wood+grain

note that the burl has a convoluted grain, the quarter sawn wood has a striated grain.