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Restoring a Moroccan Jambiya/Kumya dagger and Other blades

Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 12:18 am
by BJL
I picked this up in Marrakesh, Morocco from a small arms shop. The scabbard is steel and camel bone. The blade is of a so-so quality steel- holds a good edge and point, but it was rusty to start with. Working on getting the rust off. It isn't an antique. I did an initial cleaning last night, but didn't take a picture before I started- it was pretty much entirely covered in rust. The steel wool I was using was too fine to get the thicker spots, so will pick up a different grade wool tonight. After pictures later. Any more suggestions? I was wondering if I should sharpen the top edge of the blade partly as well.

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Re: Restoring a Moroccan Jambiya/Kumya dagger

Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 8:53 am
by mundaire

Re: Restoring a Moroccan Jambiya/Kumya dagger

Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 9:39 am
by Olly
That's a beautiful piece you have there... Do post a picture of the blade...

Re: Restoring a Moroccan Jambiya/Kumya dagger and Other blades

Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 9:17 pm
by BJL
Thanks Abhijeet, I'd read that post before. It's good informative stuff.

Hey Olly, here's one of the blade after the thorough cleaning. Used 3M metal grade pad, and 000 steel wool, and some oil.
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Now, while in Morocco, I did a fair bit of traveling and picked up a total of 9 blades. 6 of which were gifted. The one above, I kept, as well as a Touareg sword that I haggled for for over 3 hours and multiple rounds of mint tea and bread with a Touareg/Berber blacksmith. He didn't make it, he brought it over from Mali. But I did buy 6 small blades (5inch blades) that he made like the one at the bottom. Of those I kept the one in the picture and gave away 5. They make excellent gifts. These were all packed and shipped separately, and took quite a while to get to me (customs and all). But since I was cleaning that one up, I decided to get cracking and clean these as well.

Touareg sword. About 18 inches of blade, 30 overall. The blade had patches of light rust, and the bronze was turning as well. A good scrubbing with 000 steel wool fixed that. The blade pictures are before and after.

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and after:
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The Berber knife. Very crude, traditional western Saharan knife. The blade holds an edge very well, full tang. Sheath made of snake skin, camel hide and wood. The knife has scratches in it from the manufacturing process that won't come up with just a hand scrubbing. But seeing that its how their knives look anyway, I'm going to leave them there.

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Before cleaning:
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After:
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Re: Restoring a Moroccan Jambiya/Kumya dagger and Other blades

Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 9:46 pm
by kalashnikovcult
they are miss universe ..buddy...awesome collection !

Re: Restoring a Moroccan Jambiya/Kumya dagger and Other blades

Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:02 pm
by BJL
Thanks Kalash.

Re: Restoring a Moroccan Jambiya/Kumya dagger and Other blades

Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 9:40 pm
by BJL
What do you guys recommend using for finishing bronze? There's a lot of that on the sword.

Re: Restoring a Moroccan Jambiya/Kumya dagger and Other blades

Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 9:49 pm
by amit_sharma86
from where can I find acronym section like to find words like HTH and BTW. earlier this section was available but i am trying to find it out but unable to do so. Please help.

Re: Restoring a Moroccan Jambiya/Kumya dagger and Other blades

Posted: Mon May 24, 2010 8:36 pm
by jhoonday
It's a very beautiful antique Moroccan jambiya dagger. The over all length of this is 17 1/2 inches. I wish I could add this to my collection.

Re: Restoring a Moroccan Jambiya/Kumya dagger and Other blades

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 11:58 am
by kanwar76
Wow BJL those are some nice swords/daggers. I don't knwo how i missed this post.

Congrats

-Inder

Re: Restoring a Moroccan Jambiya/Kumya dagger and Other blades

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 4:36 pm
by m24
:shock: Awesome blades.

Regards

Re: Restoring a Moroccan Jambiya/Kumya dagger and Other blad

Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2012 10:15 pm
by mcclure
BJL,
That is a beautiful knife and the blade looks very nice after restoring. I'm going to Marrakesh in a few days and will be looking at knives. Can you give me an idea of prices?
Thanks in advance for help.

--John

Re: Restoring a Moroccan Jambiya/Kumya dagger and Other blad

Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2012 10:23 pm
by TC
As an avid knife lover I am just FLOORED

Cheers

TC

Re: Restoring a Moroccan Jambiya/Kumya dagger and Other blad

Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 8:06 am
by ramtiger
Nice collection