Maranao kris?

[David]

Nice job!

[ariel]

What did you use on the scabbard to make it so beautiful?

[Sajen]

Thank you David. Will give the compliment to my friend who have done indeed a great job.

Ariel, the scabbard was more demaged as I have thought before. Special in down from the scabbard where the two halfs meet was some wood missing. The wood is very weak and original from "white" colour. So after all wood work it was stained to the dark colour and get some coats from shellac.

Regards,

Detlef

[Battara]

Impressive work. Did not know it was even worse than expected.

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by Battara

Impressive work. Did not know it was even worse than expected.

Hello Jose,

there were missing small stripes of wood where the two halfes of the gandar meet. And yes, my friend is a great master of restore work.

Regards,

Detlef

[Robert]

Hello Detlef, Very nice repair and restoration work your friend did on the scabbard. One question though, did the scabbards on any of the older pre WWII Philippine pieces have any finish on the wooden parts originally? None of the ones that I have ever been able to be lucky enough to have come with the sharp pointy items I have collected have had no protective coating on them other than ones that have had both the scabbard and the blade coated in grease or have been completely coated in lacquer by a previous collector as a protective measure. The only thing that I have ever done on the wood is to do a hand rubbed wax finish. Hopefully one of the experts can give an answer on what if any finish these items originally had when first made. Again, I would like to complement your friend for the great work that he has done.

Regards,
Robert

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by Robert Coleman

Hello Detlef, Very nice repair and restoration work your friend did on the scabbard. One question though, did the scabbards on any of the older pre WWII Philippine pieces have any finish on the wooden parts originally? None of the ones that I have ever been able to be lucky enough to have come with the sharp pointy items I have collected have had no protective coating on them other than ones that have had both the scabbard and the blade coated in grease or have been completely coated in lacquer by a previous collector as a protective measure. The only thing that I have ever done on the wood is to do a hand rubbed wax finish. Hopefully one of the experts can give an answer on what if any finish these items originally had when first made. Again, I would like to complement your friend for the great work that he has done.

Regards,
Robert

Hello Robert,

I am with you, I have seen protective coatings only by keris sheaths and by some few other weapons but never by this weak wood scabbards from Philippine kris. This weak wood is the reason why they are so many times are broken IMHO. Like you can see in last pic. from post # 16 and post # 22 there was done also a bigger repair at the crosspiece and the scabbard was heavily cratched (see pictures from the seller in up) so we decided to remove the old coating from grease and give it a finish with shellac. Not original anymore but kept the original scabbard in a way which will be save also for a time after my ownership. In my eyes a acceptable trade-off.
There will have been originally rattan bands to keep the two halfs of the scabbard in place.

Regards,

Detlef