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#1 |
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 1,069
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Cleaning up the little blade that turned out to be a meed chai-tong, I found myself cursing the guy who put the file marks in the blade. Then I looked more closely at the pitting, which was not rust after all but forge marks, and the question arose....how good was the finish in the first place.
On a lot of SEA and Fillipean stuff I see here, the forging and shaping of the blade is superb, but the finish rough, although the mounts are very nice indeed. So , is the roughness due to age and use, or were these never that polished in the first place. I am not refering here to pamor work, that is off in a different direction entirely. |
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#2 |
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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: USA
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Post pics, please. The "finish", especially on older working blades, was not always finely polished on these.
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#3 |
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Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 865
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David, Yes, it is very common for the older Thai blades to have forge flaws, and file marks...they often do not do have a high polish. If you see a finely polished SEA sword it's often because a collector has polished it themselves or had it professionally polished and etched to bring out the temper line.
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#4 |
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Join Date: Jan 2011
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Andrew, will do what I can, I don't have a working camera at the moment, but have a friend who does.
Nathaniel, thanks for that, I wondered. I suppose we see the temper line and laminations as features to be brought out, and to them they were just practical solutions to make a sharp blade. But it does seem funny, the forge work and shaping is so good, and the carved hilts downright beautyfull. And then you look at Chinese, Japanese and Indo-Persian stuff where the finish of the blade is paramount! |
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