Mandaya Knife Datu Class Restored

[Battara]

Greetings,

It's been a while since I posted my restoration work. Time has been problem, but here is one that I received in the condition you see in the first picture.

It had an old split wood hilt with a section that was missing that I could not repair. The blade was deeply pitted with several layers of rust. The scabbard had nail holes, some broken nails, and some small silver overlay remnants.

Based on the scabbard evidence, I concluded that the piece was originally covered in silver plates, and thus a datu piece. So the second picture is the restored condition where I had to make a new hilt out of paduk wood with pierced and pin prick repousse silver, including a silver piece on the tang. I also did the same to the scabbard (also making the nails from scratch), basing the design on Mandaya examples. At the same time, I had to replace the missing section of the scabbard bottom from scratch. Although I was able to take off most of the rust, the pitting is so deep that I would have to make the dangerously thin, so I had to leave a lot of the pitting as is. When finished, I replaced some of the missing rattan bindings.

Enjoy!