Malay Sundang for comment

[Rafngard]

Hello All,

A recently acquired Malay sundang that I finally got around to taking some pictures from. Purchased from a fellow forum member, who thought it might date to the late 18th/early 19th century, but I'm happy to hear any dissenting opinions.

27 inches long over all, blade has a single fuller, and an old repair to the ganja/blade, probably done with brass. Blade has a single "stirup," which looks like silver. Handle is copper with a simple engraved design around the edges. Pommel is a small kakatua, probably of a dark wood. Scabbard has a copper band, and several bands of twisted copper wire. Scabbard also a horn insert at the end.

I plan to spend some time with this in the future, polishing the copper and the silver, and cleaning up the blade a bit.

I'd be happy to hear any and all comments on, or tips on clean up of, this old warrior.

Thanks,
Leif

[kronckew]

nice old one, the braised tang repair if done correctly should hold it together reasonably well, but it's probably not up to full combat efficiency. should clean up well for display tho. the scabbard bands appear to be braided 3 strand turks head style, not twisted, which you could replicate for the one that appears to be missing. here's a link to an excellent thread here on how to make them in rattan, which if you are careful and practice for a year or two would work for wire.

Link to steve's how-to

[kai]

Hello Leif,

A recently acquired Malay sundang that I finally got around to taking some pictures from. Purchased from a fellow forum member, who thought it might date to the late 18th/early 19th century, but I'm happy to hear any dissenting opinions.

I assume he meant turn of the 19th century (1890ies/1910ies)? For Malay sundang we don't have any established chronology nor specific stylistic details to go by when trying to date a piece. The straight gangya line doesn't make this an early kris, I'm afraid.

I could live with a rough guesstimate of the blade being probably antique or possibly close. Also the crosspiece and probably the pommel do seem to have some age. The stem of the scabbard as well as the grip look like more recent work IMHO.

27 inches long over all, blade has a single fuller, and an old repair to the ganja/blade, probably done with brass.

I'm not sure the tang is affected/repaired as suggested above - looks more like a part of the gangya broke off?

I plan to spend some time with this in the future, polishing the copper and the silver, and cleaning up the blade a bit.

For working up the blade, I'd suggest to completely remove the hilt and the clamp. The base with the repair will be difficult to work on; if you go for polishing the whole blade, it may be worth also cleaning/polishing up this area (removing most solder on the blade) and repatinating the remaining brass(?) after staining the blade. Maybe an exploratory cleaning and etching of the upper half of the blade might be a good idea to look for laminations and decide how much effort to invest the whole blade?

Regards,
Kai

[Battara]

Kai I think you are on to something. Looks to me that there is still a lot of work to be done on this......

[Sajen]

Hello Leif,

I agree with Kai and Jose, look like a lot of work is needed for this sundang. I would handle all very careful but think it is worth the effort. My personal feeling is that it could be very well a very early sundang and believe that all belong together even the grip but changed in its history maybe the appearance but I am not an expert and it's just my feeling.
I am curious what you will do with it, please keep us updated.

Regards,
Detlef

[Rafngard]

Hello,

Firstly, thank you all for you comments and opinions.

Kronckew,

re:Turk's head(s)
I think you're absolutely right, when comparing how they look to Tito Gunong's absolutely fantastic, I agree, they are absolutely braided 3 strand turk's heads. I'll need to start practicing....

Kai,

re: age
Nope, I believe he meant 1790s-1810s. Part of why I solicited dissenting opinions. Though he may have only been referring to the blade.

re:repair
Yes, I agree, I looks like the ganjo was definitely damaged at some point. However, since brass is present on both sides of the blade I think that maybe there was something to the base of the blade as well?

re:cleaning up
Can I assume that the blade is held firm via some sort of pitch-based resin in a Malay context? And if so would the method of holding the blade to a candle method work for removing the blade? I'm not sure I'm skilled/equipped enough to remove solder. Removing the hilt might be near my current limits...

To be honest I was mostly intending to just do the whole increasing grades of sand paper over the blade into 0000 steal wool, and polishing the copper and silver. Would it be worth trying to etch the blade? I thought lamination was fairly rare on pieces like this. Any recommendations you (or anyone else) have on this would be fantastic.

Sajen,

I will absolutely keep you all posted as to what I do with it. It might be a bit though.

Again, thanks to all,
Leif

[kronckew]

i hope the blade clamp was not installed on top of the wood core then forever covered and held by the soldered cover or you may never get the grip off in one piece. the experts may have a comment on how this was likely made.

i know nepalis use 'laha' a tree resin based cutlers cement, along with stuff like animal hair & dung to hold their tangs. thais similarly used tree resin based glues, so i think that the resin based glue you have may be similar.

anyhow, when a khukuri grip needs replacement, you need to heat the grip up enough to soften the resin till it can be pulled off. holding it over a flame or putting it in the oven is not an option, you don't want to damage anything. also laha stinks to high heaven when hot. your 'significant other' will not be amused. anyhow, a trick is to use a large pot of water deep enough to immerse the whole grip, get it boiling. an put the grip in a large plastic heat resistant ('cook in in the bag' type) bag and secure the bag around the blade well above the grip with tape, rubber band, making sure you get as much air out as possible before securing. then immerse the bagged end in the water and simmer (ie. turn down the heat till it just stays bubbling) and let the heat soak into the grip for an hour or so. then take it out (use gloves, it's HOT) and try pulling off the grip. if it moves but won't come off, cook it in the bag some more. if it still won't come off, you are screwed. abort.

best done while the wife is away for a few days (or in a man-cave far from the female parts of the house), so you can clean up the mess and get the stench out of the house. you should clean off as much goop as you can while it is hot. use something hard like a wood chopstick to clean the hole in the handle - do not use a cloth poked in the hole as it will be a biotch to get out when it sticks. if it does, use the bag trick again. do NOT use her favourite pot. she will not be amused. she would likely take a large chef's knife and damage you. anyhow after replacing all the tools and cloths now covered in stinky laha, and remembering why the heck you started this disaster, you can make any changes you want, use google to find a recipe for a new batch of (if possible, non-stinky) tree resin glue and put everything back together. remember if you use a nice smelling fragrant pine resin, she-who-must-be-obeyed may still not like it covering 'her' kitchen and cooking stuff. if your significant other is perchance male, you may be able to ignore the misogynistic anti-feminine, politically incorrect remarks above, if she is female, do not let her read this. i do not want to be looking over my shoulder or get 1gb of insults and threats on my facebook page. one of my ex wives could easily have done that on her own, & i don't want to know how many stranger women it would take.

p.s. - one of my ex-wives did in fact try to cut me with a largish kitchen knife. not laha related or she would have used my two hole shootsgun and buckshot. anyway, it did not turn out well. she missed & hit the wall. she found out why a guard is normally fitted to a stabbing knife, after getting her to hold the towel over the cut in her palm, i figgered with both hands occupied i was safe for a while so i drove her to the emergency room where they gave her about 10 stitches. she suffered from PMS & migrains a lot.

[drac2k]

You were quite charitable and I would say you were the one who was very lucky! First she missed you with the knife and secondly you weren't arrested for having the audacity of moving out of the way of the knife and thus causing her bodily harm ; a clear case of modern day domestic violence.
On a side note, your manner of removing a handle seems worth a try.

[kronckew]

Originally Posted by drac2k

...and secondly you weren't arrested for having the audacity of moving out of the way of the knife and thus causing her bodily harm ; a clear case of modern day domestic violence.
..

it happened in eastern saudi arabia, so no political correctness involved. or stinky laha. they stitched her up at the company hospital & sent her home. she left a short time later. i stayed for a few more years. she did get half my assets on the way out...

my main regret now was the local antique stores didn't have any real saifs, some had the std. tarnished silver jambiayahs but no swords. some tourist shops had flashy overpriced chromed sword replicas that didn't look all that well made. i wasn't into collecting as much them then so i didn't try as hard as i could have, my contacts could easily have located one i now reflect.

[drac2k]

Maybe it was for the best that you didn't have any "real swords," or "knives with guards," as you previously stated ; if you had, she may have gotten a second "stab," at you. You could have been the one getting stitched up.
The glass is half full ?

[Battara]

To bring this back to the sundang, Kai you can heat the blade just below he hilt and that will heat the tang and get the hilt off. Use a butane torch for soft solder, that way the heat won't be hot enough to damage the steel blade.

[kai]

Hello Jose,

(BTW, it's Leif who is planning to work on this kris )

I'm with you and also strongly recommend heating the base of the blade with an open flame: either a candle and lots of patience or a very gentle/flickering torch flame and being even more careful! Once the heat dissipates into the tang, it is usually fairly easy to remove the blade. Don't worry, the flame doesn't hurt the blade but try to get as little direct heat at the hilt. I usually wrap the grip with some cloth and wear gloves. Especially for the pommel this is a way more gentle approach than the cooking procedure described above! (Not needed for any SEA blade I tried to remove and I also doubt it is really called for when working things khukuri - heating Nepali blades did for me so far but my experience is admittedly very limited.)

The clamp is quite loose (looks a bit large for this kris) - once the resin softens due to the heat, it should be easy to gently bend it aside so that the blade can be removed from the hilt. When the tang starts to wiggle when gently pulling and twisting blade vs hilt, keep gently heating the blade until the tang comes off easily. If it doesn't, let it cool down and try again next day; even stubborn ones do come off after a few cycles.

Regards,
Kai

[kai]

Hello Leif,

Nope, I believe he meant 1790s-1810s. Part of why I solicited dissenting opinions. Though he may have only been referring to the blade.

I was also focusing on the blade: IMHO it is very unlikely to be 200 years or older (based on workmanship, etc.). It does seem to have some age though and also some wear.

Yes, I agree, I looks like the ganjo was definitely damaged at some point. However, since brass is present on both sides of the blade I think that maybe there was something to the base of the blade as well?

It's possible. To me it looks more like a pretty sloppy job though which probably was supposed to fix it to the blade again.

I'm not sure I'm skilled/equipped enough to remove solder. Removing the hilt might be near my current limits...

I'd probably only try to remove the solder smeared onto the blade surface - that will interfere with polishing and etching! It's rather soft, so it's not that difficult. However, I'd strongly recommend an exploratory etch to verify that the effort is really worth it!

To be honest I was mostly intending to just do the whole increasing grades of sand paper over the blade into 0000 steal wool,

Yes, that will help a lot! (However, it's much easier to work on the bare blade rather than trying to work around the clamp/etc.)

BTW, I don't think steel wool will do much good once you move into the finest sandpaper/stones. Use a polishing compound if you really want a perfect finish - usually not needed though, especially before the first etch this is almost certainly overkill. No power tools - only elbow grease!

Would it be worth trying to etch the blade? I thought lamination was fairly rare on pieces like this.

I'm pretty confident that this blade is laminated - give it a try!

Regards,
Kai

[Battara]

I agree - I think this mostly likely laminated.