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Originally Posted by kronckew
there are two holes, one that appear to have been a void in the horn, the other looks like a slot for the tang, its filled with what appears to be sumatran cutlers cement, what some of us would call 'laha'. i'll probably fill them level with plastic steel & polish them a bit more.
the 54cm. (21.25in.) blade itself is well balanced, feels good in the hand, starts out with a flat spine and changes to a V spine after about 76mm. (3 in.), blade is distally tapered, 5mm at guard, 3mm at the tip end of the fuller, 32mm wide blade, has a forged fuller either side almost to the tip, and has a steel guard disk slightly smaller in dia. than the scalloped end of the bolster, this appears to have been formed with or welded to the blade, then machined or filed flat (hopefully added before the final heat treatments). about 3mm (1/8 in.) sticks out ahead of the bolster, the rest appears to taper into and then under the bolster scallops for an unknown distance, tho the indications are it's at least 3/8" thick...
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Kronckew, it is a nice descprition I would love to read in every sword or knife thread, including your mention to weights. It is the better way to understand what are we talking about, as the classification and photos are not enough to have a good knowledge of the pieces shown. Please, when you talk about laha, do you mean the same black natural glue used in India and Nepal? I find very interesting the form of the spine, because I donīt find in this moment a good reason to change it form flat to a "V", I suppose an inverted one. Do you know if this is a constant in this kind of weapons, old and new? Some kind of decoration, perhaps? What I donīt understand is, why do you think that the welding of the bolster to the blade after the thermal treatments is better than before them? I mean, if the welding is made by forge, it has to be done before. If the welding is made with soft weld, it would be of not use to make it before hardening, as it would fail under the heat, but if the soft weld is made after the thermal treatment with very soft materials and with due care, maybe the heat would not affect the previous hardening. Is this it what do you meant, or I understood wrongly? Thank you for your attention.
My regards
Gonzalo