Tombak for comment
 

Hello all,

I recently acquired this spearhead and sheath. I honestly know nothing about it and would appreciate all comments. Where is it from (I'm thinking Lombok), and how old do you think it is?

The scabbard is lovely, showing signs of real age. Sadly there is some recent damage. There is a (very) little rust on the blade, what is the best way to deal with this? I am imagining that steel wool and oil would NOT be the best approach with a blade with pamor like this!

More photo's available on request.

Cheers,

Russel

Hello Russel,
nice piece. I'm a rank amateur at this stuff so can't help with i.d. and age etc. But I think Mr. Maisey posted recently on updated cleaning methods he uses for cleaning keris. He mentioned that the Golden Circle Pineapple Juice used to be his cleaning solution of choice but due to a recipe change of the product he has now switched to a vinegar solution.
I'd recommend searching for vinegar de-rusting posts and seeing if vinegar might be applicable to your item.
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15923.
best wishes

Hi Russel,

nice tombak and more nice to have the scabbard, although I think that the tip of the scabbard is missing. How long is the blade without pesi (tang)?
Here is a thread which could be helpful for you: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ghlight=tombak
I think that your tombak is from Java, age difficult to say. A cleaning with lemon juice will remove the rust but you can use vinegar as well. A warangan (traditional stain) will bring out the pamor.

Nice piece, congrats,

Detlef

I would also add that oil and #0000 steel wool will NOT hurt the pamor of this blade. :)

Of course you are correct! ;) But when Russel want to clean the blade with vinegar or lemon juice he have to remove the oil again.

Thanks for your comments and advice guys. I think I will try lemon juice to remove the rust.

Detlef,

The dimensions are:
OA Length: 300mm
Blade length: 220mm
Blade width (max) 47mm (6.3mm thick at this point)
Weight: 158g

As you suggested, sadly the tip of the sheath is missing. If I can get a better idea of the shape of the missing piece I may be able to make something to replace it (although I would certainly not permanently attach it).

More unfortunate is that a small portion of the sheath has been lost, probably quite recently (see pic), I contacted the seller in the hope that he may still have the missing piece, but sadly he didn't. I am not confident with that sort of repair so I will have to leave it as is (and mutter under my breath every time I notice it).

I was hoping that the carving and painting style may indicate it's origin/age. It has many coats of paint, and seems to have been a variety of colours during its life.

Russel

Hi Russel,

so it's bigger as I thought. Like I write before, I am nearly sure that this tombak is from Java. When you want to have restored the sheath contact me. The tip of the scabbard will have looked similar like the shown examples.

Regards,

Detlef

Thank you all for your comments and advice.

Detlef, would you please email me some close-up pics of the sheath tips? From mine it seems they are constructed separately from the rest of the scabbard and attached later. I would love to have the scabbard properly restored, but I fear that the cost (including return postage to Germany if I used your restorer) would be more than the item is worth.

Cheers, Russel

Russel, I'm going to make a couple of comments here that are going to put me out of step with what has already been said, and for that I apologise.

I doubt that this blade can be considered to have pamor. Pamor is the outer skin of a blade that has a core. This blade does not appear to have a core. It believe that close examination would reveal that what we can see is a simple blade made of iron, the grain in the material shows that this iron has been worked in the forge, ie, forged out, folded, welded a number of times to get rid of impurities and make it useable.

Sometimes a blade will use plain worked iron rather than pamor as its outer skin, in such a case we would call that iron outer skin "pamor sanak".

I've looked long and hard at the pics of this blade, and the only rust I can see is slight discolouration in a couple of places. I'd soak in WD40 for a week or so and then give it a brushing with a hard brush, maybe a bit of steel wool on the end of a sate stick could be used on some of the spots. If the rust is worse than I think I can see, then maybe a soak in vinegar.

This is an old tombak with a somewhat scarce form, but it is of very ordinary quality.

Personally, I would not bother with restoration of this scabbard, but having said that, it is totally restorable, and easily so. All you need to do is attach a new piece of wood to the tip with a mortise & tenon joint, recarve it with a little finial similar the ones Detlef has shown, and match the colour. The little missing piece on the side can be repaired in a similar fashion. I'd probably use Aquadhere for the tip, and 5 minute Araldite for the little missing piece on the side, but I could well opt for using Araldite on both joints, depends on a number of factors what adhesive I'd use.

Generally speaking, collectors in this field need to learn to do their own restoration and repair. It is possible to get work like this done in Indonesia, from my perspective the cost and effort involved in restoration of a scabbard like this would simply not be worth the trouble, far better to begin learning the skills needed yourself, and this would be a good piece to start your education on. In fact, you have the capacity to do a better job than you could get done in Indonesia. I am very familiar with the work of m'ranggis in Central Jawa and although their carving and faking skills are often very good, they invariably use super-glue type adhesives, the favourite is Alteco. These adhesives dry out over time and the joint eventually loses strength and fails.
Additionally, they prioritise finished appearance rather than quality of workmanship, and will never do a tongued joint if they can get away with a butt joint. Combine a butt joint with an unsuitable adhesive and what you've got is a short-term fix, not something that is good for another 100 years, which should be your objective if you're going to do any restoration at all. They are perfectly capable of doing meticulous work, but the only way to get this work is to check while it is production and reject anything that does not meet your personal criteria.

On a scabbard like this one, which in Jawa would be viewed as a piece of junk, it would in fact be difficult to get any tukang wrongko to do a careful and a quality job, simply because he would consider that the object was not worth his time. In Jawa they don't see things in the same way that collectors in the western world do. A totally different set of values are applied to many things.