Keris handle

[Mickey the Finn]

Rushing is not a thing I do. I have a keris, as well as a tombak which have remained inside their respective warangka and tutup since I acquired them several years ago. Neither one shows any obvious indications of epoxy having been used. The day may come when I feel confident enough to attempt the extrication methods which have been suggested to me at this forum.

During my pre-teen years I started work at a machine shop. The boss had pasted (or stapled, or tacked) to one of the walls in his office "Ten Rules You Can Live By". A Google search for these Ten Rules will yield a variety of results, but what I saw in that man's office is the best rendering of these "Ten Rules" that I know. [This was before the advent of the World Wide Web made it possible for anyone and everyone to put their personal spin on anything and everything]. I remember the printout (more likely a photocopy back in those days) read "If you don't know how to operate it, leave it alone". "If you don't know how to fix it, find someone who does". "If it's not yours, don't take it". "If you borrow it, put it back". "If you break it, fix it", etc. The maxims on that piece of paper have been sound guidance for me to this day, in my personal life as well as my career.

That boss of mine had another photocopy tacked to his office wall which read, "I enjoy sex more than you enjoy smoking, but you don't see me f^(k!ng in your office".

It's all sound advice, and [to me] just common sense and/or basic courtesy.

[David]

I can add one more item to your old boss' list Mickey.
"If you want something done and you don't know how to do it, FIGURE IT OUT!" LOL! Letting stuff sit around with unresolved problems, hoping someone wiser will come along to fix them rarely works out well.
Surgi, removing stuck hilts from their blades is not rocket science. But your problem seems to be just the opposite, a hilt that is too loose, so that is not your issue. If you want to tighten it up a little follow my advice above. Just be aware that wood and metal expand and contract over time, so don't add too much material to the pesi (tang) or it might crack your hilt if things expand over time.
I find it amazing Mickey, that rather than learn how to remove those keris and tombak you own from their respective wrongko and tutup, you would rather just let them linger, stuck inside their cases. Are you not even interested in knowing what these blades look like? It is quite possible they are rusting away in there and sore in need of maintenance. You can send them to me if you don't really want them. LOL!

[A. G. Maisey]

Removing a stuck blade from its scabbard.

Over all the time I have been involved with keris and other items of tosanaji from SE Asia, I have never encountered a blade that could not be extracted from its scabbard.

Yes, I've come across a few pretty sticky ones, and the method that I have found most effective is simply brute force:-

use a bench vice with alloy jaw liners so you do not mark the tang, clamp the tang into the vice horizontally, grip the atasan (top part of the wrongko) with both hands, using short, sudden bursts of force pull the scabbard away from the blade.

Using this method I have never damaged a scabbard nor a blade, and I have never failed to get a stuck blade away from its scabbard.

I once saw Empu Pauzan Pusposukadgo remove a keris blade from a scabbard simply by talking to it and tapping the sides of the gandar on the edge of a stone step. He used very little force. I had already tried to remove this keris from the wrongko, but being in Solo I did not have a vice with alloy jaw liners, so I intended to use Pauzan's vice with wooden liners. Pauzan was sitting on the edge of step drinking coffee and relaxing, I asked if I could use his vice, he said yeah, OK, but give me a look at it, I handed him the keris, he spoke to it, tapped the gandar on the edge of the step he was sitting on a couple of times, then just gently lifted the keris away from its scabbard.

I've got a mate lives in Alberta. He has encountered a few stuck keris, and what he does is this:-

wrap the entire keris in a plastic bag and put it in the freezer, if possible remove the hilt, leave it for a few hours or overnight; it normally removes easily after this cold treatment.

I am not recommending this method, I've never tried it, but my mate swears by it.

I've got a real good story about a stuck tombak, but I do not want to put it up on a public Forum for the world to read because anybody who does not know me personally would be inclined to think I should be given residence in a home for the mentally ill.

[Mickey the Finn]

I find it amazing Mickey, that rather than learn how to remove those keris and tombak you own from their respective wrongko and tutup, you would rather just let them linger, stuck inside their cases. Are you not even interested in knowing what these blades look like? It is quite possible they are rusting away in there and sore in need of maintenance.

David, that's not what I said, and that's not what I meant. You need to pay attention to the words that I used, and to what I actually said, instead of a "loosy-goosy" extrapolation of what you think I meant by the words that I used. I get the impression that you're just shooting from the hip to try to add even a little bit of injury to insult by suggesting that I'm lazy, ignorant, and not genuinely interested in tosan aji because of my callous disregard for the care and maintenance of my collection. I'm not going to hold any of this against you, however. I'm not even going to take offense at your failure to apologize to me for your presumptuousness. Instead, I'm going to take it for granted that you'd just been dipping into the ouzo too deeply again, and when you were back in your right mind, you were so mortified by your own dreck that you hoped the entire episode would become nothing more than an embarrassing memory.

I'm glad you and I can have this kind of open and honest discussion, and point out the character flaws and shortcomings in each other's blind spots.

Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. Proverbs 27:17

[David]

Actually Mickey, i understood quite clearly what you said and what you meant. I happen to disagreed with your advice to surgi and felt obligated to express my own opinion. As for your admission that you have left blades unexamined and uncared for in their sheaths for several years, i am not sure how else i can possibly understand that. Your words are your words. And i did not think making a joke about you sending them along to me would trigger you. If you felt i was being "loose goosey" with you i apologize. But please don't make the mistake of thinking this venue is the appropriate place to start a pissing match.

[Jean]

I am relieved to witness that the Forum is not dead even if it could be used for more positive discussions!

[David]

Agreed Jean. If you have any useful tips for releasing stuck sheaths or hilts that we have not already covered pleas feel free to share them. But i believe we have covered these issued pretty thoroughly in the past.