Katars again [sans Kareena ;) ]

beoram

beoram

Joined
Nov 27, 2001
Messages
1,780
Photos of 18th-19th century Mahratta Katar
m-katar04.jpg

(click here for more)
cheers, B.
 
Originally posted by Bill Martino
No Kareena, no interest.
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Well then I'll see if I can convince her to visit and pose with the katar. ;)
ash-ktr9.jpg

please Kareena

;) :D ;)
 
Ben is this the same one you were inquireing about concerning the wootz steel?
Beautiful katar. I bet Dave K is drooling if he sees it.:)
Dave is one of the few that have had a katar from H.I. on order with for about 2-3 years.:eek:
Seems as if no one wants to volunteer to make a model for a katar. This would be an excellent trial for Foxy's process!!!!!!!:D
 
Originally posted by Yvsa
Ben is this the same one you were inquireing about concerning the wootz steel?
Beautiful katar. I bet Dave K is drooling if he sees it.:)
Dave is one of the few that have had a katar from H.I. on order with for about 2-3 years.:eek:
Seems as if no one wants to volunteer to make a model for a katar. This would be an excellent trial for Foxy's process!!!!!!!:D
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Yes, Yvsa, this is the one I was asking about wootz steel in connexion with. [Though, actually, just got done cleaning up my 19th century 'Royal Nepal Arsenal' khukuri with a bit of Flitz polish and some quadraple nought steel wool....some pitting remains, naturally; but there's also an odd cloudiness over some of the metal, which I scrubbed at for quite a while without making any difference so I am now wondering if that is Wootz steel (in the 1800s, there weren't leaf springs, so it seems likely....)]

It is a stunning katar (well, my only one too, but still stunning :)). It came dearly though--spent more on this then on my two 'antique' khukuris combined. I was curious about an HI katar too--but then I broke down and got this one. I'm still mesmerised by it though :eek: And the style makes it a Mahratta katar, which is even more interesting to me (the Marathas were the one significant opposition to the Mughal invasion and carved out modern day Maharashtra [the state b*ggered-over by Enron]).

I don't think I could let it out of my reach for Foxy's process :eek:....actually, I don't think the process would be good for this one, as it still has some silver-leaf remaining, which I imagine could easily be stripped off. You can see that (except for one tiny spot) it's worn-off of the grip entirely and off of about 25% of the handle.
m-katar07.jpg



Back to the Wootz steel--my other thought is that it might be a European blade. I read somewhere that most indian katar-blades are a solid-piece with the handle, which this one isn't. It also has that 'rivet-hole', which makes it look like wherever it was made, it was made to fit into different handle-styles.

I'd be curious if anyone knows much about dating katars....ie whether it's 18th or 19th century. Or just any more bits about katars in general would be welcome.

cheers, B.
 
Drool, drool... :)

If Bura were to make one like that I know I'd get it. I also like Yvsa's idea about having Foxy get involved, but I do understand the owner's hesitation.

Mostly I just agitate for a katar but am too lazy to do research and make a model.

My biggest fear is that even given decent research (which I am too lazy to do) anything I were to create in wood would inevitably be more of a 21st century American Polack take on a katar than an actual Indian or Nepali katar of an appropriate time period.

Still, I've got a little time on my hands now so maybe I should just hack something together and try and send it off to Uncle Bill as a prototype for the kamis to ignore. ;)

-Dave
 
Originally posted by Dave K
Drool, drool... :)

If Bura were to make one like that I know I'd get it. I also like Yvsa's idea about having Foxy get involved, but I do understand the owner's hesitation.
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Thanks Dave. Do you own any katars? I'd love to see some more examples.

Originally posted by Dave K
Mostly I just agitate for a katar but am too lazy to do research and make a model.

My biggest fear is that even given decent research (which I am too lazy to do) anything I were to create in wood would inevitably be more of a 21st century American Polack take on a katar than an actual Indian or Nepali katar of an appropriate time period.

Still, I've got a little time on my hands now so maybe I should just hack something together and try and send it off to Uncle Bill as a prototype for the kamis to ignore. ;)
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I wouldn't think it would be that hard for the kamis to make. The blade, unlike a khukuri-blade, is fairly straight-forward. Though there are some different styles, e.g. more triangular than mine.

The handle would be the most difficult thing. Many of them seem to have straight 'guards' rather than the Mahratta incurving guard, which I imagine would be more difficult:
m-katar05.jpg


The grips look like they're cast, so one would just need some sort of mould for those. I don't know exactly how the handle itself is done, but I wouldn't think it's be hard. There's a question of whether the HI kamis would make it (this is in theory) in one or two pieces (ie blade and handle together or not). The decoration on the handle of this one is what would take the longest. It's extra-ordinary! I don't know how well you can see from the pics:
m-katar06.jpg


but it's non-uniform, so I imagine whoever did it used a painstakingly slow-process.

cheers all, B.
 
Originally posted by Dave K
Who is Kareena?

Where did that pic come from?
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Kareena is Kareena Kapoor, a beautiful Bollywood [Hindi] actress. The pic is from the fantastic film Asoka, about the life of the Buddhist ruler of India.

I captured it off of my DVD of Asoka--there's some more on the thread katars/kattars, in which I was really asking about the leather straps I've seen used with katars sometimes, but quickly turned into a thread about Kareena instead ;).

cheers, B.
 
Story of my life. When I hit the link using AOL it stalled out the computer. When I used Netscape it told me I had to download some Java. I tried and it failed.

Karma is exact and never fails.
 
is what I use - years out of date, and doesn't cause near as many bollixes as the new improved versions. They erased the control panel on 5.0 during an automatic upgrade. 6.0 wanted me to answer a question and click a box every time I moved from the index to a thread on the forum. I don't even want to imagine what 7.0 is like.
Oh, here's Kareena.

What does this have to do with khukuris - ask Uncle Bill :D
 
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