Hello Alan,
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I do not know how Philippine smiths worked, but I do know very well the technology used in old Jawa and Bali, size of the work piece was definitely a factor.
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Acknowledged. I didn't mean to suggest that a larger billet wouldn't be more difficult to forge.
However, don't have regular Keris from the Majapahit era often/usually gonjo with pamor? (Several of the early keris preserved in European collections do have a gonjo with pamor - all are out of stain and most are polished so it's hard to generalize). What are the oldest known keris originating from Bali like?
Assuming that early keris from Bali shared their characteristics with Keris Jawa, it seems that the gonjo lost their pamor during later development in Bali rather than this being based on practical constraints of the early keris smiths. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
One could argue that this development may have been correlated with the Keris Bali attaining a larger size (i.e. making it more and more difficult to forge a gonjo from the same billet than with their smaller cousins from Jawa). That's why I mentioned Moro kris since they still used laminated gangya (same material as used to sandwich the blade's steel core in between) despite even larger blades. This doesn't proove anything since these are separate cultural/technological developments but I yet have to see a strong case for the "forging constraints" hypothesis.
Regards,
Kai