Quote:
Originally Posted by kai
Hello David,
Yes, I was referring to the traditional mixture of arsenic with lime juice. And, for brevity, I wasn't differentiating between etching and staining.
Any etching/staining result will not only be affected by the steel alloys (possibly containing different amounts of nickel, phosphorous, etc.) but as well from differences in heat treatment, especially quenching.
In most cases, Moro "twistcore" blades will have been crafted from layering mild steel and another steel with noticeable nickel content (probably from Luwu?), indeed.
Regards,
Kai
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Well Kai, i think you really have to differentiate between etching and staining because they are not the same thing at all. Actually i don't think all that much etching takes place during the staining process with warangan anyway. Most of the etching with keris takes place during the pre-staining "cleaning" processes when either fruit acids or coconut water are used to remove rust and bring the blade to "whitened" condition.
I was not arguing that there is not nickel in the steel of this archaic Moro blade. But by my understanding the patterns created here are not done by the same process that is used to create keris with pamor. There is not pamor used in this archaic blade as far as i know. There may very well be some nickel content in some of the iron used though. But frankly i don't know. I am curious to know how you know this though. Can you cite a source for this information?