Parang Kerekoepang From Banjarmasin, Borneo

[Timo Nieminen]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

The blade is quite heavy and thick. It is hard for me to believe that the all wood hilt of this sword could have handled such a blade for long, indeed, you can already see an old stress crack. It seems to me that it would not take much of a blow, even for this slasher, to break the heavy blade from the hilt. Note there is no bolster, rattan or wire wrap, or anything else to strengthen the hilt.

It's a lovely sword to look at, quite elegant, but I wonder about its "engineering".

It would be stronger with a bolster, or with wrapping. Possibly much stronger. But if the wood is resistant to splitting, and the tang isn't inserted into an under-sized hole in the hilt (which would put a lot of stress on it), should be OK. In use, I'd perhaps worry more about failure of the resin, rather than the hilt breaking apart. (Losing the blade due to resin failure is made more likely by a low stress fitting, but should still be OK.) If it's good wood, it'll get some long cracks rather than fall to pieces, which will let you know that it's time to get a new hilt.

A short blade puts much less stress on the hilt than a long blade. I think length matters more than the weight. I have seen longer blades in bolster-less hilts; I've used a longer blade in a bolster-less hilt (horn, rather than wood) to fell trees (RIP faithful golok; the blade failed while the hilt kept going - hit something very hard and took a big chip out of the blade).

Yes, the hilt could easily be made stronger. But strong enough is strong enough. Traditional hilts are often built in ways that collectors of modern swords would regard with horror as absolutely inadequate. But history shows that the traditional way is good enough.

How heavy is it?