Henk, I understand exactly what you mean when you say that this discussion is costing you too much time and energy.
I often feel the same way about some of the threads I have become involved in.
This being so, please do not feel obliged to respond to what I shall now post.
I think that what we may have here is a slight misunderstanding caused by language usage.
You said:- "---lesser quality wood which makes quicker carving possible---"
What I understand by this statement is that the wood in and of itself is of a low quality.
There is nothing that I can see in the photograph of chregu's keris that would indicate that the quality of wood used is sub-standard. Yes, the quality of workmanship does leave something to be desired, but all indications are that the wood itself is a decent quality wood.
I have not seen nearly as many of this keris type as you tell us you have seen, but all that I have seen have used wood of decent quality, and the actual workmanship has varied enormously from superb all the way down to absolute garbage.
In fact, the speed with which wood can be carved depends upon wood of a decent quality being used. It needs to be of a tight, even grain in order to support the detail of the carving, and it needs to be of reasonable hardness. If it is too soft, the carving will not be well supported, if it is too hard, the carving will be too difficult, and additionally, very hard woods sometimes have a tendency to shear off along the grain in detail work.
For instance, black ebony is a beautiful wood, that is very hard and carves well, although it does use time with hand tools, however, its weakness is that it can lose sharp edges when these edges coincide with the cross grain of the wood.
Timoho is one of the most highly prized of wrongko woods, however, we almost never see it carved because the black sections are incredibly difficult to carve,and the pale sections are too soft to support detail well.
Cendono jowo is a very low cost wood, that is pale in colour, and easy to work. It supports carving reasonably well, and can be stained, however, in use, the carved edges in detail work will often give way and you finish up with chips all over the work. The same holds true of cendono wangi, but it is rare to see this carved, and it is extremely expensive.
A low cost wood that fairly easy to carve and that supports detail well is sono---which is what the dark wrongko that David has supplied a pic of probably is. Makassar ebony is also a candidate, but its harder and has a tendency to chip.
Sawo carves well and supports detail well, also, it is not expensive.
In fact, the idea of "lesser quality wood" just does not register with me, because the lower the quality of the wood, the more difficult the job becomes, and you can buy good quality wood for carving at a low price.
The high quality wrongko woods are virtually never carved, because it is their grain that makes them high quality, and the carving will hide that.
However, if we accept that the dress in these highly carved wrongkos is often of less than premium quality, in that the form and detail of the carving, and the overall finish, is less than good, then I for one will wholeheartedly agree.
|