Malay Sundang for comment

[Rafngard]

Hello,

Firstly, thank you all for you comments and opinions.

Kronckew,

re:Turk's head(s)
I think you're absolutely right, when comparing how they look to Tito Gunong's absolutely fantastic, I agree, they are absolutely braided 3 strand turk's heads. I'll need to start practicing....

Kai,

re: age
Nope, I believe he meant 1790s-1810s. Part of why I solicited dissenting opinions. Though he may have only been referring to the blade.

re:repair
Yes, I agree, I looks like the ganjo was definitely damaged at some point. However, since brass is present on both sides of the blade I think that maybe there was something to the base of the blade as well?

re:cleaning up
Can I assume that the blade is held firm via some sort of pitch-based resin in a Malay context? And if so would the method of holding the blade to a candle method work for removing the blade? I'm not sure I'm skilled/equipped enough to remove solder. Removing the hilt might be near my current limits...

To be honest I was mostly intending to just do the whole increasing grades of sand paper over the blade into 0000 steal wool, and polishing the copper and silver. Would it be worth trying to etch the blade? I thought lamination was fairly rare on pieces like this. Any recommendations you (or anyone else) have on this would be fantastic.

Sajen,

I will absolutely keep you all posted as to what I do with it. It might be a bit though.

Again, thanks to all,
Leif