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Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey
Ridho, I do appreciate that you are trying to come to terms with a way in which to estimate blade age, but to the best of my knowledge there is no simple way or quick way or short way of doing this. It is not a matter of just looking what we can see in a picture, nor is it a matter of looking at what we can see with the blade in hand. I have handled more than a few pre-1700 blades in European museum collections, and many of those blades look as if they came off the work bench yesterday, mix them in with some kemardikan blades made in conventional forms and it would be more than a little bit difficult to say which are old and which are new.
There is no formula you can use.
According to traditional belief, some blades will have a greater or lesser number of layers that can be counted on either side of the core, however, how useful is this as an indicator when we know that we are looking at blades with varying levels or erosion?
About the only useful indicator that concerns layering of material in a blade, that I know is that Pajajaran blades often have the pamor layer very slightly separated from the layer beneath it, this is easy to see under magnification, but sometimes difficult to see without magnification.
There is a lot of belief that concerns iron types, supposed differences in forging , and differences in construction, in my opinion, most of this belief is simply that:- belief.
Learn the basics first, then learn how to actually make a blade, I do not mean theory from a book, I mean with a hammer in your hand, and then using chisels and other tools that you have made yourself. When you have done this, and you have many years of experience, you may have some chance of being able to estimate how old a blade is, and how to classify it.
Imagined differences in forge techniques will not help you at all.
When we build up layers of iron, or layers of iron and nickel, and then we polish that layered material it can be very difficult sometimes to see the layers, but if we then cause erosion of that layered surface we can see the layers easily, this is true of both newly forged material and old material.
If we begin the layering process with thick material we get thick layers, if with thin material, thin layers.
Within the tangguh system there are some indicators that do address number and thickness of material layers, but these indicators can only be used in combination with all the other indicators, never as stand alone indicators. As already mentioned, tangguh equates to classification, not necessarily age.
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