My first dharb for comment

[PUFF]

I don't think bottom cap was missing. Here 's an example of a similar handle. The dahb 's from south Lanna (Utaradit province).

My "Household Dahb" means "Dahb" for home defence not for army.

[PUFF]

The matter of spine tapering 's quite important. I 'd studied some speciments with single tapered, double tapered and untapered.

Single tapered blades usually associate with folded steel. Blades has little or no belly which were ID as older blade (early-mid Ayuthaya).

More recent one has double tapered spine which are highly tapered at the base (first 1/4 at the base) and then gently tapered from the rest to the tip. This style can be found in late Ayuthaya to Mid Rattanakosin. Many sword have a ring at the middle of the handle. The ring indicates site to put index and middle fingers on.

In many case, modern Thai swords could be both untapered or tapered up to any point tip, belly or from 1/2 to tip. Plain steel sheet (HC or spring) are materials of choice. Then belly part 's forged out. This cause thinner blade near the forged out belly. Bigger belly and upward tip style became popular for Krabi-Krabong practice. Since balance 's moved forward, its grip has to move up, close to furrule.

[Mark]

Originally Posted by Valjhun

I'm not so sure what taper-tapering means... Could someone explain me more precisely?

Thanks!

"Taper" just means "getting progressively narrower/thinner." In a sword, one often speaks of "distal taper," meaning the amount the thickness of the blade decreases as you go toward the tip ("distal" end) of the blade.

Most blades have what Puff is calling a "single taper," meaning that the thinning of the blade is at a pretty even rate, while most dha have a "double taper" (good terms, by the way -- I definately am going to use them ), meaning that there are different rates of thinning along the length of the blade.

Imagine holding a sword straight up, in front of you, with the spine directly towards you and the edge away, tip pointing up. A "single taper" blade will have a profile like a very long, thin triangle, with essentially straight sides. A "double taper" blade will have curved sides, slanted toward each other more at the base of the blade, then gradually gradually becoming more parallel, like the outline of the Eiffel Tower. If you look on my web site I have for many of the swords measurements of the blade thickness in four places: at the forte (base), 1/3 of the way to the tip, 2/3 of the way to the tip, and basically at the tip. You can generally see that the width of the blade decreases a lot in the first 1/3 of the blade, usually by more than half, and by the second third of the length has almost reached the full taper seen at the tip. You can see it pretty well in this photo:

The spine is almost a centimeter wide, 95 mm, at the base, and tapers to only about 15 mm at the tip over a blade length of about 50 cm. But about 3/4 of that taper happens within about 10 cm from the forte. Since dha and daab generally do not have a heavy pommel to counter-balance the weight of the blade, this kind of double taper moves the point of balance back toward the grip instead, actually further back than your typical Western or Japanese sword, which makes the blades very light in the tip and "fast."