Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - Material Analysis: Matched Pair of Antique Philippine Blades with Crystalline Matrix

A. G. Maisey · 17th July 2026, 05:37 AM

Thanks for your clarification Ian.

I'm guessing that steel rail tracks would have replaced the earlier iron tracks beginning around 1870? But I'll bet that the steel tracks were even bigger magnets for midnight visits.

In Jawa the smiths used to steal the tracks, & even dismantle bridges for the material. When the bridge from Jawa to Madura was built during the early years of this century, the local entrepreneurs would pay midnight visits to liberate the bolts holding the bridge structure together. These were big bolts, and my understanding is that they supplied the local smiths with material that was actually being used for years --- maybe still is.

Rail track steel would not make particularly wonderful cutting implements, it only has about 6%-8% carbon, but it would work quite well for other things like shovels, hammers, paculs (pacul= a kind of short handle hoe).

Historically, way back before Majapahit, & continuing for hundreds of years, most of the ferric material used in Jawa/Bali came from China, both as tools & as ingots.

17th July 2026, 05:37 AM	#17
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,248	Thanks for your clarification Ian. I'm guessing that steel rail tracks would have replaced the earlier iron tracks beginning around 1870? But I'll bet that the steel tracks were even bigger magnets for midnight visits. In Jawa the smiths used to steal the tracks, & even dismantle bridges for the material. When the bridge from Jawa to Madura was built during the early years of this century, the local entrepreneurs would pay midnight visits to liberate the bolts holding the bridge structure together. These were big bolts, and my understanding is that they supplied the local smiths with material that was actually being used for years --- maybe still is. Rail track steel would not make particularly wonderful cutting implements, it only has about 6%-8% carbon, but it would work quite well for other things like shovels, hammers, paculs (pacul= a kind of short handle hoe). Historically, way back before Majapahit, & continuing for hundreds of years, most of the ferric material used in Jawa/Bali came from China, both as tools & as ingots.