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#1 |
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Room 101, Glos. UK
Posts: 4,167
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Just aquired this Indian tulwar hilted sword. It's on it's way to me at the moment, should have it in a few days. It's straight, double edged and sharp both edges to the prominent ricasso. Very pointy too. No apparent markings in the photos. Dark patinated hilt, appears to be undecorated, pointy midsection of the grip suited for gloves, so i'm guessing northern. Hilt pommel disk has a spike with a damaged end. Blade is NOT decorated, and remains in the rough state after being filed into shape by the original bladesmith, and left unpolished. Surprising since the blade shows distinct signs of being pattern welded steel in a fairly uniform bird's eye pattern )I'll use FeCl on it after it gets here to confirm.
So appears to be a 'munitions grade' user rather than a parade weapon, but made from a good steel possibly better than wootz for combat. Shall I call this a keratch? If not, what? more details on arrival. |
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#2 |
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Room 101, Glos. UK
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Last 2 photos:
Last edited by kronckew; 4th May 2021 at 01:58 PM. |
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#3 |
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Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Tasmania, Australia
Posts: 236
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I'm far from being an authority on Indian arms, but I have suspicions about the authenticity of this sword: the blade seems of recent manufacture to me. But as I said, I'm no expert.
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#4 |
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Join Date: Oct 2015
Posts: 147
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I think this is acidic damast (sorry, I don't know how to say it correctly in English. If someone understands me now
![]() Polishing can remove residues, and new etching will do nothing. By the way, the Udaipuri hilt type Last edited by Saracen; 4th May 2021 at 03:48 PM. |
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#5 |
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Room 101, Glos. UK
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i think you may have meant 'acid etched'. A pattern of resist is transferred to the object, usually repeating along the object, which is then dipped in acid eating into the bare parts and not the resist coated ones.
In true pattern welding the pattern goes all the way thru. I'll polish a patch and find out. Hand rasping to hide an etched pattern rather than just using a power grinder seems a bit unusual. Even a bit of hand sanding would eliminate a botched etch better. |
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#6 |
Vikingsword Staff
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 6,284
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Those blank spots on the blade are curious.
![]() Usually I see this pooled, or bullseye pattern used in contemporary work, but this isn't contemporary I think. |
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#7 | |
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Room 101, Glos. UK
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I suspect the 'blank spots' aren't, it's just artifacts from my converting to greyscale to emphasize the patterning and 'optimizing' the photo to HDR. I'll take better ones eventually when it arrives. |
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#8 | ||
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Join Date: Oct 2015
Posts: 147
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Yes, I wanted to say it Quote:
With pattern welding, there should be distortions of the pattern in these places. |
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#9 | |
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Join Date: Feb 2018
Posts: 90
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In regards to the hilt, funnily enough, it's relatively modern too. This hilt form is thought to be Rajasthani/Udaipuri in origin, and it developed during the 19th century, which, although 200 years ago, was during the time when India was being heavily colonized and thus many martial things (including swords & sword hilts) were becoming more symbolic and ritual in nature, and less based on practicality/usefulness. Name-game wise, I'd just call it a sword lol. I don't think the assemblage is serious enough that it deserves semantic arguing. Kirach probably works best. Or just call it a straight-bladed tulwar ![]() |
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