Dent removal on silver ferule (barung)
 

Any advice on how to push or pull out this dent (circled)?

The stuff is pretty soft.
Try a short length of 3/8 inch diameter dowel and work it on the inside of the piece to return to round off the flat spot from the inside carefully. You'll probably want a flat surface to act as a kind of anvil. Round the edges of the dowel end so you don't break the joint where the ferrule flares.
You should be able to do this without using a hammer.

Hello Jeff,

Yes, I am with Rick, a wooden dowel with a round tip will do the job, I've done it before.

Regards,
Detlef

Thank you. Also looking for advice on how to remedy this issue. Same barung.

With advice from a forum member, I heated the tip to blue hot and carefully tapped with a hammer on an anvil. The damage is still visible but much better, I think I will keep as is versus removing tip and reprofiling. Sorry for blurry photos.

And here is the finished restore. Above is the Ebay gamble photo. I actually like the pommel with the broken bits, the breaks are very old and the original owner likely carried it as such. This is a huge barung 27.5" OAL with 19.5" blade. I believe it would be considered shandigan, with concave sides and short edge bevel, but the lines are not as distinct as other examples I've seen here.

Jeff,

Nice job on cleaning it up. I think you have an old one, maybe mid-19th C. The hilt seems to be of that era, and the narrow shandigan blade style would fit also (although a littler longer than usual for a 19th C piece). Very good catch!

Great Job, Give Info
 

JeffS,

Very good job indeed. I would love to hear about your methods.

Sincerely,
RobT

I started by removing the handle and ferule. This was done by clamping blade in padded vice and applying a heat gun to base of the blade until the resin softened enough to pull the handle off. It takes a couple minutes for the resin to soften. I then did an initial clean with 150 grit sandpaper and then followed with 220, 320, 400, 600, 800, 1200 leaving the pits but getting enough polish to pick up a light pattern with a diluted vinegar dip. The tip was straightened, as described above, before the vinegar bath. I polished the ferule and straightened the dent as advised here. For the handle, I used boiled linseed oil going for a simple "user" matte finish. Much of the binding resin had been lost over the years so I needed to add new resin. For this I used some resin sticks (photo below) I recently picked up in North Kalamtan from a remote Dayak community. They appear to be hand rolled like a cigarette with wrapping material around the resin. I cut pieces and dropped into the handle recess and then heated the tang with a torch and plunged the hot tang into the recess. The resin quickly melted, I topped up with some more pieces, melted with heat gun, and tamped down with rounded tip of a toothbrush handle.

Thanks for the Info
 

JeffS,

Excellent methods and result. I especially liked that you didn't go overboard with the sandpaper. You could probably get a cottage import industry going with those resin sticks.

Sincerely,
RobT