Ethnographic Arms & Armour - how many layers?

There is only a single layer of steel in a keris, and that is the core; that core may have been welded into a number of layers prior to insertion, but these layers are to all intents and purposes invisible. What is visible are the layers of pamor comprised of iron and the contrasting pamor material.

Different eras had a standard of different numbers of layers of pamor, for instance, common belief has it that only about 16 layers of pamor are visible in a Majapahit blade ( this is on one side of the blade only).

Ngulit semangka is a random construction, just like beras wutah, but ngulit semangka will have less and thicker layers than beras wutah.

A common standard for a late Surakarta keris is 128 layers of nickel on one side of the blade. This is one layer of nickel forged to paper thickness sandwiched between two pieces of iron of anything up to about half an inch thickness, the progression being:- 1 +1+1+1= 4, 4X2=8X2=16x2=32x2=64x2=128, at which point the material has the steel core welded in, giving 128 nominal layers on each side of the blade. Nominal, because you lose some layers in the welding.

You lose more layers when you do the carving, so you finish up with less layers on each side of the blade in the finished article,than you welded, and bear in mind, this is with a new keris, repeated cleaning will take layers, neglect will take layers.

The number of layers used in a pamor miring motif can vary according to the motif and the desired effect.

The number of layers has no effect at all on how a blade will be valued. The factors affecting value are tangguh (classification), attribution, provenance, state of preservation, excellence of execution of both pamor and form; the pamor motif can affect value, a perfectly executed and difficult pamor miring motif has a much higher value than a pamor mlumah motif.