Yes, I've heard of it, but frankly, I'm rather dubious about the way it would react in a weld. The melt point of both iron and gold is fairly close,I think from memory, gold about 1100C , iron about 1100C to 1500C, so it might possibly happen that they could form a weld, but it may not bond well. I don't know, but my guess would be that even if it did form a weld it would not be a strong joint.
In Javanese and Balinese belief there is a lot of very improbable stuff. Additionally, in the keris belief system, amongst people who are not directly involved in the making of keris, there is a lot of misinformation and erroneous belief. Very often "information" is presented in a way that reinforces that belief. For instance, the way in which this video has been made is in fact misinformation in that it shows the way lay people want to believe keris are made, rather than the way they are made. Still, I found it very interesting because it shows a small scale smelt process that probably did exist at some time in the past, and the actual hands-on forge process is a good, solid representation. The window dressing is BS.
The video was made by a bloke who lives not far from my Javanese address, and it has been made to entertain, but stripped of the window dressing it is good, solid stuff. My guess is that it was probably made in Madura or Bali, but much of the background is in a Balinese context, so it might have been made there.
I find the commentary in Krama Inggil very peculiar, as not a lot of people in this day and age are conversant with this speech level. Moreover it is Surakarta Krama Inggil, which limits 100% understanding even more. It would reach more people if it had been done in Indonesian. But this was the whole objective of the video:- to impress, and it surely does do that.
Good video. Technically correct process. Very informative. But a bit more elaborate than it needs to be.
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