Mandaya Knife Datu Class Restored
 

Greetings,

It's been a while since I posted my restoration work. Time has been problem, but here is one that I received in the condition you see in the first picture.

It had an old split wood hilt with a section that was missing that I could not repair. The blade was deeply pitted with several layers of rust. The scabbard had nail holes, some broken nails, and some small silver overlay remnants.

Based on the scabbard evidence, I concluded that the piece was originally covered in silver plates, and thus a datu piece. So the second picture is the restored condition where I had to make a new hilt out of paduk wood with pierced and pin prick repousse silver, including a silver piece on the tang. I also did the same to the scabbard (also making the nails from scratch), basing the design on Mandaya examples. At the same time, I had to replace the missing section of the scabbard bottom from scratch. Although I was able to take off most of the rust, the pitting is so deep that I would have to make the dangerously thin, so I had to leave a lot of the pitting as is. When finished, I replaced some of the missing rattan bindings.

Enjoy!

A lot of looks but no comments, eh?

Brilliant, Jose!

Sorry, I've been busy and had not noticed this until now. Very nice work Jose, just what I would expect to see in an item that you restored. I especially like the job you did in the carving the new hilt. Beautiful.

Lovely piece post-reconstruction.

May I ask what evidence led you to the conclusion that the scabbard was originally covered in silver plates, and how you arrived at the particular end result?

Hello Jose,

well done like usual! :) Like Robert I like special the job you have done by the carving of the new hilt. :cool:

Regards,
Detlef

Certainly. A very good question.

As I mentioned earlier, the scabbard had a piece of silver plate in it and there were nail holes in the correct places of the scabbard wood which would attach silver plates. I even found broken nails in the wood as well as whole metal nails (I was able to take out the whole nails very carefully).

Thus based on this, plus the broken silver band on the tang, I came to the conclusion that this was originally a datu piece with silver mounts. Examples of Mandaya knives have these features.

I studied the motifs of these examples and came up with a simple design, using what I call "pin prick" repousse method that they once used. This includes the piercing work that they also did on these sheets. The nails I made matched the metal of the original nails.

Thank you for your feedback folks.

Nice! Is a Mandaya knife a spear point fitted with a handle?

A good question. The answer is no, and below is a Mandaya spearhead (I think it belongs to Rick).

Hello Jose,

Thanks for the posting - lots of efforts of yours that went into this restoration!

I believe oiled and polished the old hilt would make a neat display next to the current incarnation. Any idea what wood the old scabbard was made from?

What wood did you use for the hilt? Was the original silver band at the base of the exposed tang or just shoved down?

Regards,
Kai

Hi Kai,

The original scabbard wood is very soft and not sure what it is.

But the hilt I made out of paduk wood (which matches the inside of the narra tree, its cousin). Paduk is not endangered, unlike the narra tree.

As for the original silver band at the base of the tang, it was probably shoved down since it was broken and somewhat twisted. That is why I had to make a new one to replace the damaged original.

And BTW - the blade is oiled. But the pitting and micro-pitting is so severe that the oiling appearance doesn't show.