Tim, this blade is well on the way to being clean, but it is not yet clean enough to stain.
Every bit of rust must be removed.
If you go ahead and stain in this half clean condition you may not get a satisfactory finish.
A 10X loupe is too high a magnification for the job of picking out the rust from the pits. I suggest you try a 2.5X, or 3X, machinists loupe. I find I can work with one of these for very extended periods. Another way to go is an illuminated magnifier, or a pair of magnifying glasses.
You can also attack those tiny remaining bits of rust with hydrochloric acid. Just a drop at a time, and wait while it works, then wash off, and possibly kill it. If you use the hydrochloric, follow with another day or so in the pineapple juice.
Do not be in a hurry to get this job done.
Seven to ten days in pineapple juice is about usual for a blade in the condition your blade was in before you started.
I once spent over six months, working most week nights for an hour or so at picking the rust out of the pits in a Bali blade. If you want a job you can be proud of, you must work slowly and carefully.
When you do get this blade clean, and if you decide to go ahead with the arsenic stain, give it a really good polish with steel wool and a powder sink cleaner before you start. The blade must be white before you commence to stain.
Regarding the metuk.
As a generality, a lower quality tombak will have a metuk that is forged as a part of the blade, not a separately made and mechanically attached metuk. A village quality metuk will nearly always have this type of one piece construction, or sometimes with no metuk at all.
It is not necessarily related to age, although most recently made tombak do seem to have the integral metuk.
Note that I am talking in generalities. It is entirely possible for an old, good quality tombak to have an integral metuk, however, this is rare.
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