Question about integral bolsters

[Timo Nieminen]

Originally Posted by Emanuel

Timo the tukou and habaki are not integral. In the case of nihonto the habaki isn't even structural, it serves as an interface with the scabbard to protect the surface of the blade, not to reinforce the blade.

See Iaroslav Lebedynsky, De l'épée Scythe au sabre Mongol, Errance, Paris, 2008, pg 168 C(e), for a knife or sword with a possible integral collar, and pg 175 v, for a sword. I wouldn't call these bolsters, since they have a guard butted up against them, and are part of the blade, rather than the hilt. I can't tell from the drawings whether these are integral or not.

(There is at least one rivetted-on tunkou in that book; there is some diversity in how these are done.)

Originally Posted by Emanuel

Any reference I could check for the medieval knives? I haven't seen anything with an integral bolster.

Will look.

[Emanuel]

Thanks Timo!

[Timo Nieminen]

Some candidates for late Medieval knives with integral bolsters:
http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/86821
http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/86819
http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/86817
http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/86808

According to Paul Binns, integral bolsters appear in early Tudor. An iron tang is welded on to a steel blade on these, and the bolster is formed from the join: http://www.paul-binns-swords.co.uk/knives.html

[Timo Nieminen]

See JUM#13, JUM#14, JUM#16, JUM#17, JUM#18 in http://www.ucl.ac.uk/iams/newsletter...2005_feuerbach for some examples of Central Asian knives that appear to have integral bolsters.