Thank you for your explanation Alan. Do you think it is reasonable for beginners like me to forget about pamor material at the moment and try to understand iron and steel first? The problem with this approach is that some keris have very large coverage of pamor material and it becomes very hard to see the iron. My further questions are (these are the last ones as this had strayed out of topic..sorry):
1. What i understand from Wikipedia is that wrought iron is iron with low carbon content. This means that mined iron sand that were melted and cleaned can be considered as wrought iron. Is there any way to differentiate wrought iron that comes from industrial smelters and the ones that were traditionally melted and cleaned? Is it the impurities? What exactly do we have to look for in identifying this?
2. Does pig iron (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_iron) with 3-4% carbon qualifies as baja in keris? Had it been used (or is it possible to be used) as keris material at all? Can it be used to make kelengan keris?
3. If we heat iron with coke and we get baja (if the above is true) i have yet to see any baja that have fibrous inclusions. I had seen baja with lots of impurities, but no inclusions. Why is this so Alan?
I am sure that the process is more complicated that what ever perception that i have in mind, but i have yet been exposed to any of these matters. Sorry about my ignorance Alan. Thanks.