I’ve just found some videos on warangan making and using
 

while I was researching the coffee etching method I came across a few videos by this avid video maker on youtube who publishes many things about krises
Since they are English spoken they may interest this community since the most videos are in various Indonesian languages


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFsWsknkXBQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEaCmSYJ3J0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS6P10f7sAc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJU-n_oDKdQ


one more addition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSKxKnABqsY

I don't know about this guy. FIVE videos and he is just getting his lime juice strained. He needs to edit better and combine these into a single video.
I would be curious to hear more about aging the lime juice for this process though. I had never heard it suggested that the lime needs to fermented for more than month before combining the realgar to create the warangan. Is this how you do it Alan?

Let's say that it is not the way I do it, David.

The first warangan job I did was picked up from a book written by one of the old British colonials in Malaya, who had observed the process. Then I observed a man in Jogja then a number of people in Solo, then I was taught, hands on by Mpu Suparman.

The Malay method was completely different to the Javanese methods, all of which varies a little bit but are essentially the same.

Currently I use several different methods, but they are all similar.

I use warangan from Jawa when I can get stuff of decent quality, it can vary in quality a lot.

I prefer to use laboratory quality arsenic, I DO NOT RECOMMEND THAT anybody who has not been professionally trained in the handling of arsenic should consider using it.

Everybody I know uses freshly squeezed tahitian lime juice that has been strained.

Why Tahitian limes, Alan?
More acidic?

Thanks Alan. I was trying to figure out from these videos what fermentation of the lime juice was supposed to do for the process. I had always read to use fresh lime juice.

this seems to be his latest video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgsr2MjC1UQ

Entertaining.

I'll bet Harry Potter would be a real dab hand at this sort of thing.

One of his steps is to add 100ml babon to "catalyse the reaction".
What is babon? Google isn't giving me any leads.

in the video says that Babon is aged (old?) warangan which no longer has active arsenic compounds


apparently it is possible to acquire it

https://www.bukalapak.com/p/hobi-kol...warangan-keris

Ah I see, thanks Milandro.
This method seems very... elaborate.

It would be very nice that someone would make a video comparing the etching of a kris blad with the sulphur method to a warangan




I don’t have any personal experience with any method but these seem to be the only videos available in English which give any information on the process.

Since there are many questions about etching blades I thought of posting it here.

There are, probably, many ways to do this and I understand from the person whom etches my blades (not connected to the author of the video) that there are different formulations and that they are used for different metals too.

Most people's perspective would change if one may be able to compare this to more (or even less I suspect) orthodox videos in local languages

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8XHSy1JcM4&t=423s

this (without any words) seems to promote some particular product

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNyQCIeHxYM

this for example explains (apparently) how to overcome the problems from a faded warangan... unfortunately it is is incomprehensible to me

Hmmm, I assume he is doing it in the Malay way of warangan?

Anyway, I have tried to do warangan myself before and it was very hard. I even seek consultation with someone who was trained by a local Javanese on the art of warangan.

It is not so straightforward with many preparation needs to be done in order for the blade to be warangan properly and nowadays people using the soak method which yields faster result.

And fyi, most of the youtube videos will not show you the trade or complete procedure. Afterall, those smiths will be out of business if everyone can does a simple warangan job on their keris correctly.

I don’t have a horse in this race.

I am merely showing what I find on line since this is something that many people find interesting and obviously talk about and have done so for a long time.

Some people told me that years ago they were sending blades to Indonesia to have them etched but this option, due to the shipping costs and the introduction of various taxes or regulations has become either very impractical or extremely costly.

I realize that many people have taken to wash blades in recent times out of sheer necessity since they had no access to people whom would etch or simply restore blades

I have no intention of doing this myself and I completely trust the person that does this for me. But if someone feels inclined to experiment in the art of etching I think it would be best if these videos were part of the material to study.

The business practice of someone in Indonesia or in Malaysia are not in danger at all since there is little that someone from Europe (for example) would ship a blade to Indonesia and pay the shipping plus taxes (even if the blade was yours to start with unless you pay for the extremely costly.

Actually, in Javanese, a "babon" is a hen (ie, chicken, chook) that has laid eggs. I think it can also be used to refer to any female animal that has reproduced, but I'm not sure about this.

But it definitely is a laying hen.

All this alchemy is totally, absolutely, completely different to what I have seen in Jawa, & what I use myself.

The first time I saw a Javanese gentleman doing blade staining, he started cold, he had nothing ready at all, I had three or four dirty, rusty blades and I had 4 hours or so before my train left Jogja.

The m'ranggi sent one of his kids to the market to buy some limes, a couple of brushes & some warangan. When the required materials arrived the m'ranggi crushed the warangan in his wife's kitchen mortar --- the same one she used to prepare food --- but he lined it first with a bit of plastic, he did not bother to cover the pestle with plastic though.

He juiced the limes, strained them, then brushed the lime juice onto the blades repeatedly for around half an hour & removed as much rust & filth as he could, it was not a perfect job, but he had limited time.

Before he started the cleaning he had already mixed the powdered warangan with some lime juice --- about as much powder as would cover a man's thumb nail, and about two egg-cups of lime juice, the result was a suspension, not a mixture.

He repeatedly brushed the suspension of warangan & lime juice into both sides of the blades, as the blade colour came up, he would rinse off the warangan, pat dry with a cloth and lay the blades in the sun until thoroughly dry.

This process was repeated a number of times until I had to leave to catch my train.

The blades were passably stained and the m'ranggi told me --- through an interpreter, I could not speak BI or Javanese back then --- that I should repeat what I saw him do in about 12 months, and keep doing it from time to time until the job was perfect.

The man who did this was the abdi dalem who was responsible for the maintenance of the Sultan of Ngayogyakarta's pusakas.

That was more than 50 years ago. Since then I have seen a lot of people stain blades, and I've stained more than a few myself. The basic process is the same as I have just outlined.

Commercial warangan jobs are done differently, and generally speaking these commercial jobs do use a soak method and the stain produced is vastly inferior to the process I have just described.

//quote//
This process was repeated a number of times until I had to leave to catch my train.

The blades were passably stained and the m'ranggi told me --- through an interpreter, I could not speak BI or Javanese back then --- that I should repeat what I saw him do in about 12 months, and keep doing it from time to time until the job was perfect.


OMG! It is for sure a tedious process. I didn't know they actually have to do it many a times until it yields good results on the bilah.

Me and my itchy hand, after watching youtube videos; thinking I can also do it. And eventually end up having 2 good keris without warangan on the bilah. If only I could turn back the clock. I learnt the lesson a hard way was that leave it to the professional. There are many clowns doing video, passing off as experts in the internet world. Recently I also tried to repair my violin bow tip BUT after speaking to Alan and also a good pal who is good with his hand, I decided otherwise and send to a luthier to fix it, spend $, yes but at least the item came back properly fixed.

Not always as tedious as my description sounds Anthony. Sometimes you can get a passably decent stain on an old blade with vinegar and a bit of brushing.

On the other hand, this keris is one that I made, to get a decent stain on this it took me two full days, most of the time working in full sun in the middle of summer.

yes, indeed, the dictionary says so, I had a look even this morning when I posted the first post of today yet if you look up on Google “ Babon warangan “ it will give a large number of links to Someting called Babon Bibit ( if this helps.... WARANGAN CAIR SIAP PAKAI ( Babon bibit) untuk jamas keris dan tombak pusaka "

among many also a video on a Paket Komplit ( complete package I assume)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcqFXU4CVLk


please look at this video ( for people who understand the language) he mentions the ward babon in the title.

I have done the warangan process a few times on some of my keris with varying results.While i am sure a professional would do a much better job i just did not find it practical to send any of my keris abroad for staining as well as the worry about loss or theft along the way when sending the blade numerous times over great distances to foreign countries. I was fortunate to be able to obtain some lab grade arsenic trioxide some years back and though i have never had any training in handling such material as Alan suggests i treated it with the utmost respect and care and believe i handled it all pretty safely.
I used the brush on method that was described by Alan on this forum some time ago.
I have learned a few things since that i believe might make the procedure even more successful the next time i try it, but i suppose that remains to be seen until i make the next attempt. But while it is a slow and perhaps tedious process to go from a rusty dull blade to something that presents good colour and pamor i don't think it is difficult to be able to at least improve upon the appearance of a keris if you follow simple directions. I do find the videos presented by Milandro to be rather drawn out and overly complicated using methods which seem unnecessary from what i have seen and experienced.
Here is a Bali keris that i stained about 13 years ago. When i found the blade it was not in the best of shape. It had lived in a store window of a curio shop in South Orange, New Jersey for some time and was covered in a thin layer of active rust. The first group of photos shows the keris after i cleaned the rust off with a soak in pineapple juice and regular scrubbings for a couple of days and then gave it a warangan treatment. I must admit that i did not use Tahitian limes, but rather whatever regular limes were available at the supermarket. As described before, i used lab grade arsenic trioxide to make the warangan.
As you can see, my first treatment was weak at best. It was certainly an improvement over the original condition (sorry, i didn't take any before photos) and revealed the pamor pattern, but it was not satisfactory for me. The second set of photos (sorry for the quick and poor cellphone pics as i did not photograph this at the time and just made these now for this post) shows my results from may second attempt on this blade done soon after the first. It is still far from perfect, but i decided not to make another go at it and to live with it as is. The stain seems to have help up well over the more than a dozen years since it was applied.
I do have a few blades i have been wanting to attend to for some time and maybe i will get around to them this year as the weather improves. If i do i will be sure to document the process for thoroughly. :)

You probably did use Tahitian limes David, I don't know of any other kind, I only know of different names for the same kind of limes.

I guess that maybe there are a lot of different kinds of limes, but what I see available where I live are just sold as "limes". Those "just limes" are the same as what we use in Jawa where they are called "jeruk pecel", which I was told years ago by a gardener were the same as "Tahitian limes". They work in waranagan the same way, that I do know.

In my descriptions I've always used the term "Tahitian lime" in order to make very clear that we cannot use lemon, because I have seen mention of lemons used for blade staining, and in my experience lemon simply does not work well at all, it makes the blade far too dark, far too quickly.

There is another kind of lime that is common & that we cannot use for staining:- jeruk perut, only the leaves of this are useful, they get used in cooking. I think jeruk perut is called "kaffir lime" in English.

Thanks for mention of dictionary meanings Milandro. I use dictionaries all the time, but only when I'm doubtful about something, with "babon", the word is BI as well as Javanese, and when I mentioned laying hens I was thinking BI, but your mention of dictionary meanings has prompted me to check the Javanese dictionary too.

What I found is that in Javanese "babon" has a much wider application that in BI, and maybe this makes use of the word associated with a warangan mix a bit more intelligible.

From Robson & Wibisono:-

1 a female animal mate; animal that has reproduced, esp. a hen; mother hen (see also babu); babon angrem - a batik pattern.
2 manuscript, original (also an alternate meaning in BI)
3 capital (to be invested)

if we go to the Balai Bahasa publication, which is the best Javanese dictionary of which I have knowledge, we find an even wider application of the word. This dictionary is a Javanese dictionary for use by Javanese people, so the entries are in Basa Jawa.

nice.

Cheers Alan aside from the dictionary meaning, the fact that searching for the word Babon together with warangan on google returns a large number of hits all to do with products meant to stain blades looking the same must mean that Babon refers to this kind of thing in whatever way. If you search babon warangan for images it will only show this kind of products

this is a screen shot of the search for images

Thanks Milandro, but I don't use google searches much where keris are concerned, I much prefer to rely on my own experience.

I use google for things i might want to buy, or for quick possible answers on things I don't know, or for things to do with travel --- hasn't been much of that lately.

All this stuff that relates to mixtures & etc for warangan looks to me like preparation of the stuff used for commercial staining of large numbers of blades, it is very definitely not in the smallest degree relative to the type staining I've seen done, or that I have done myself or that I have taught to other people.

My interest in the use of the word "babon" in a context that I have not seen nor heard previously is more to do with enquiry into language rather than enquiry into these warangan mixes.

It, was just to show that a number of people use the word babon in a warangan context.

Also in the last link to the video above (I will repeat here) there is a video where this guy mentions babon in the tile and shows it during the video, sicne you understand the language it may clarify the use of the word.

“ Cara Membuat Larutan Warangan dengan Babon”


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcqFXU4CVLk

I believe i understand the relationship between the warangan solution & the word "babon" now.

The "babon" relates to the idea of beginning a reaction, just as a hen begins life by laying an egg. The word "bibit" means seed, or origin, or beginning, and that word is there somewhere too. so "babon" & "bibit" both relate in general terms to the idea of origin, just as a hen originates a beginning by the laying of a an egg that will produce a chicken. The reference attached to babon is one of origin, the beinning of something, and in this context that makes sense.

I find that it helps me to understand something, both in English, and in other languages if I can understand the relationships between ideas and words, not just pick up a word and use it without some sort of understanding of the net of ideas that drive the word.

As I have said, my interest was in use of the word, rather than in the substance that the word referred to.

As for videos, well, they need to be really good to convince me to spend any of my very limited time in watching them. I've never been able to get through a complete keris related video, best I can usually manage is a few minutes. If it was 70 or so years ago, and I was just beginning to find my feet with the keris, it would probably be quite different, I'd probably spend hours looking for all the keris related videos I could find, but the problem for me is that there is so much misinformation, misunderstanding and just plain bovine excreta on the net that relates to keris, I get turned off very, very quickly. With keris, I got out of kindergarten a very long time ago.

Milandro, you may want to see this post for a line up of stained blades, one of which has been stained with the sulphur method. It may show you a good comparison.

There is also this blade that I stained using the sulphur, salt and rice water method. You may use this method and result to compare.

A hypothesis has been made on the latter post that the sulphur stain method may yield a better result on blades which have been stained with arsenic in the past, compared to those that have never been stained with arsenic before.

Thank you really very much about this.

I will certainly give the Sulphur method a go since it seems to be certainly way less complex than the warangan method and the results are very good (as shown form you very useful post).

since you’ve done that with success.

I was wandering what the exact function of rice water is? Is it just to form a gelatinous support to incorporate a sort of suspension of salt and sulphur and adhere to the blade?


I will certainly have a go using your formula and method. I have just the right candidate although I don’t know how good a pamor there is (not much is showing at the moment) .


If this works I may apply also to some other blades that I have or may have in future. Thank you very much!

I believe that while this is indeed an interesting line up of blades stained with different method we must be careful about how we view it for "comparison" purposes. Keep in mind that even with consistent methods applied, different irons will not all respond in the same manner to the same staining method. They will yield various colours when stained dependent upon the iron used. This is why a properly stained blade can be more easily read in terms of tangguh because different eras used different types of iron which will produce different colours when stained. So the colour can be one possible clue as to what era the blade was produced in. At least that is my understanding.

I agree with your understanding David.

But what can be read from a properly stained blade goes further than just the characteristics of the iron.

Once the blade has been stained we can also determine the characteristics of the pamor and the way in which it has been worked. Additionally we can identify the existence & extent of the heat treatment (sepuhan). More than this, we can also fairly easily identify any repairs that might have been carried out on the blade during its life.

Has anyone considered or actually used antimony trioxide in place of arsenic trioxide for the purpose of staining keris?

From what I can cursorily discover, it is considerably less toxic than the arsenic compound, though of course not without risk.

despite what anyone may think of the videos and the maker, they remain onde of the few sources of VISUAL information, here is a video on how to understand some of the problems with warangan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK9ISHUNj_w

Well, I watched it through.

I do admire this gentleman's persistence, however, to spend all this time and all this work to produce an end result that will be inferior to the normal result produced by a non-commercial process in Central Jawa seems to me to be perhaps a little bit pointless.

Yes, I do accept he has started from nothing and is still in the very early stages of his education, but there are easier, faster & better ways to get a far superior end result to the result that this method produces when it is used by an experienced person.

I am not critical of his efforts, he is doing the best he can with the information & understanding he now has, but the method he is trying to use is one designed for commercial use where a man who does this staining work for a living needs to get a number of blades stained in a limited amount of time and make a profit from the result.

I admire his persistance.

perspectives vary quite a bit.

In most part of the world people don’t have any access to professional “ washers” and although there are many videos in Indonesian language(s) there is almost nothing on line to show the proces, let alone break it down into all its parts, in English.

So, as far as I know, this is and remains the best source for those of us who are not living in Indonesia to get closer to see how this is done.

I don’t want to take anything away from professional washing in Indonesia but the option of shipping items to Indonesia and then having them reshipped to you would greatly increase the coffers content of the couriers and the taxman (In Europe EVERY item , even if yours to begin with, entering the Union would be heavily taxed ( VAT 21%) + if you exceed €150 value there would be also import tax + a flat “ handling through customs charge” charged by any postal sevice or courier.

Most people will not do this, leaving their blades unstained (and unhappy, if one believes that the kris likes to be stained with warangan) it would bring the cost of restoring blades sky high , so seeking an alternative takes no business away from the washers in Indonesia (and by the way there are tons of people in Indonesia selling warangan and realgar on line! They must have customers)

So, looking for a DIY instructional videos takes no money away from the professional in Indonesia, just makes a process available were none is


In the NL I fortunately have someone who washes krises at a reasonable price, but even then, wash a few krises and it really adds up!

I opened this thread for all of the people who will have a go at this method.

There are other methods , especially the Rice water+ Salt and Sulphur method.
But until there are beter or different videos , in English, this remains to only alternative for people living in most part of the world to do this themselves

My advice from own DIY experience using warangan solution to those who visits this thread was just leave and live with it if your country does not have professional people to help to 'wash' the keris. Alternatively send to your trusted overseas source to have it wash if you will not encounter legal or shipping issue.

I wasn’t suggesting any “ issues “ aside form a hefty charges and taxes to ship out and ship back.

Things are different in the US and EU even UK you pay tax on anything above £20 value

The rice water + salt + sulphur method was one that i came across in a book written in colonial times in English. I used it a few times, but only on older blades that had already been stained previously. I doubt that it would work very well on a new blade.

My remarks in post #33 were intended only to prompt interested people to look a little harder for the way in which genuine m'ranggis in Solo and other Central Javanese locations stain blades, the process is absolutely nothing like what is shown in these videos and it does produce a far superior and longer lasting result than the method shown in this video.

Easier, faster, more convenient, cheaper.

There are multiple variations to the common method used by most people, but basically it is this:-

Bring the blade back to absolutely clean white metal. This is vital.

Take enough warangan (realgar) to cover about one square centimeter, enough freshly squeezed & strained lime juice to fill an eggcup, maybe two, the warangan mixed to a creamy paste with a few drops of lime juice, then enough lime juice slowly mixed into that cream to make about an egg cup full of fluid.

Let it sit for a while --- 20 to 30 minutes --- the realgar settles from the solution into the bottom of the container.

Using a soft old toothbrush, brush the fluid continuously into the blade until the blade becomes sticky, repeat, repeat, repeat until the colour in the blade comes up, rinse the blade with clean running water, pat dry with a lint free cloth, dry in sunlight until totally dry.

Repeat the above process until the rinsed blade has the colour desired. This colour depends upon a number of factors, one of which is to understand the colour to be expected depending upon the classification of the blade.

Choose a warm morning with a clear blue sky.

Results can be obtained in various weather conditions but warm & clear blue sky in best.

From my perspective the wizardry shown in these videos is simply extreme and totally uncalled for. There is no "magic bullet", staining is a skill and like all skills it must be learnt, learning takes time & practice, some people learn quicker than others.

It must be understood that not all realgar is equal, and there is no reliable way to differentiate one batch from another except by use.

As I said, I admire the perseverance of the gentleman who produces these videos. But there is an easier & better way.

I understood. For sake of clarification, kindly do not get my intention wrong as my msg. is generally for public and from a different perspective.
Asians sending keris to Indonesia is not expensive but just that the shipper regulations etc.

My msg is in fact intentionally a msg. to everyone in public regardless of locations and it was do not take risk on expensive or good keris especially antique piece because the results are irreversible. It happened to me for my stupidity thinking watching video and it can helps me to get what i 'expected'. And close friends have warned me before but.....

Hope this statement clarifies.

:D :D :p what a great success !!! |:D

I would very much welcome other people to make videos, in English, on their (whichever) way to stain krises. As it is, this youtuber and few people who stain blades (not krises ) by means of other methods (also coffee) make up for the only available video resoyrces on line not in Idonesian languages.

Having a video that is in English and clearly lays out steps for this process is great i suppose...if indeed it is showing us a good method that will yield the best results. I must agree with Alan though that the process this gentleman is showing us may in fact not be the best method available for us to follow and certainly not the simplest. The point is that there are other methods of applying warangan, and that when we talk about "other methods" we don't necessarily mean non-arsenic methods. I have not personally done a great deal of blade staining, but i have had much better success with the brush on method that Alan has laid out in his post #36 than anything this gentleman has showed us so far. All the hoops this guy suggests we jump through to create warangan and his method for applying it are unnecessary and may not yield the best results. So following his methods just because they are clearly laid out in an English speaking video does not make much sense to me.
I will also note a couple of other things. While i am quite aware of the pinching method he uses to help get the warangan into the pores of the blade and that indeed many people who do this in Indonesia do it barehanded, i have a hard time recommending people handle an arsenic solution in this manner. I have not done or found any studies on how this kind of practice might affect the health of mranggi who do this consistently over periods of time, but i believe it is not wise to encourage people to handle it with your bare hands as the video shows. Of course, i realize that a lot of things are done in Indonesia that would not pass muster with OSHA or the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHSA). I have seen countless videos of people smithing shirtless and barefoot without wearing any eye protection. It is just the way of things over there. While i accept that i certain can't advocate for the practice though.
Also, while i realize that the blade should be rinsed with running water when finishing this is obviously going to rinse small amounts of arsenic down your drain. Can't say i can be an advocate for such a thing even in small doses.
I also noted when watching this last video that there appeared to be a relative large area of rust that remained on the pesi of the blade he was working on. Yes, the guy has perseverance that is perhaps admirable, but again, i am not impressed by these videos.