Sewar berpamor

[BluErf]

It's not every day that we see a sewar with pamor and an obvious temper mark.

This is a rather big sewar. total length in sheath is almost 16 inches.

Original sheath and hilt are made of black horn and wood, and hideously chewed out by some bugs a long time ago. Here's the new dress, based on the old sheath and hilt.

[Gavin Nugent]

Not my field by a longway BluErf but this is a very attractive item, the ivory and timber chosen certainly make for beautiful dress, I often see this done for Kris too and am always pleased to view quality carving too, again, nice job.

Gav

[Henk]

Magnificent!! Great job!!! :eek:

[stekemest]

Wow.... how beautiful. :eek:

[Marcokeris]

A stairway to heaven :eek:

[VVV]

A true beauty!

At that size maybe it isn't a Sewar anymore?

Michael

[Lew]

Hi BluErf

That is a stunning piece! I do not think that the blade has a true temper line it seems to be more like a hardened inserted or welded edge of a different material than the main body of the blade?


Lew

[CharlesS]

Fantastic example. The dress is magnificent, new or not!!

[G. McCormack]

beautiful dress, lovely blade. I wince to see it etched so deeply, but if that is the style I can't hold it against the smith/owners. :)

Plain edge with two twist-bars for the body. Lots of work! lovely.

[BluErf]

Thanks to everyone for kind comments. :) I love this sewar too. :)

Hi Michael - I thought the classification would be based on the shape of the blade, and not really the size? I have another sewar of similar proportions, but with a plain blade and nice old patinated wooden sheath and hilt.

Hi Lew - thanks for pointing that out. However, I always thought the extra black portion of the edge, running from 30% up the forte to the tip was a sign of the tempering. The metal at the edge looked rather homogenous, except for the extra black shade, which turns out with etching.

Hi Mr McCormack, nice to hear from you. Unfortunately, kerises and other blades in the Southeast Asian context are often heavily etched, or even 'cleaned' with acid, resulting in rather corroded blade. Yes, the results can be quite upsetting to blade-lovers, but I guess that is part of the culture here - everything has a lifespan.

[Lew]

[QUOTE=BluErf]Thanks to everyone for kind comments. :) I love this sewar too. :)
Hi Lew - thanks for pointing that out. However, I always thought the extra black portion of the edge, running from 30% up the forte to the tip was a sign of the tempering. The metal at the edge looked rather homogenous, except for the extra black shade, which turns out with etching.

Hi BluErf

The hardened edge on your sewar does not exhibit a continuation of the pamor that we see on the rest of the blade. A temper line forms when one quenches a mono steel or pattern welded blade in oil or water this forms austinite or martinsite along the edge which appears as a temper line. Maybe one of the smiths here can explain it better than me?

Lew

[VVV]

...Hi Michael - I thought the classification would be based on the shape of the blade, and not really the size? I have another sewar of similar proportions, but with a plain blade and nice old patinated wooden sheath and hilt...

Hi Kai Wee,

I was thinking of the Golok Rembau (see Hill 1956:60) and suspected that something similar was the case for an oversized Sewar?

Michael

[BluErf]

Hello Michael,

Sorry for taking a while to get back. Had to dig out my books, which are still the various stages of being unpacked since I moved house.

I looked up the reference of golok rembau in the Hill article and saw that it was a mention of this golok being similar to the tumbok lada, but larger.

Also referring to Zonneveld's book, I found that it had adopted the same definition from Hill.

But that could be sufficient to make a differentiation, because in both Hill's article and Zonneveld's book, the tumbok lada was illustrated as a dagger with a slightly curved, short and broad blade, with a hilt in the form of a thick cylinder with a flat/near flat pommel. The sewar by comparison, is proportionately longer, slimmer and has a more pronounced curve. Furthermore, the hilt does not have the same bulky cylindrical look to it.

In Zonneveld's book, the sewar specimens published ranged from 19.5cm to 33.5cm, showing that a wide range of sizes is possible for sewars. The text also made mention of large sewars used as a machete.

Hence, though this blade of mine is larger than the biggest speciment published in Zonneveld's book at about 40cm, I think it is most likely still a sewar due to the blade and hilt form.

[VVV]

Hi Kai Wee,

I didn't mean that yours was a golok rembau. Just that it happens that oversized weapons also have
other names (like tumbok lada - golok rembau).
Maybe we will find it later in some source or maybe it's always a sewar, no matter size?
Anyway it's a great piece and the size is interesting too.

Michael