Quote:
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Originally Posted by Greybeard
In an older thread (May 2008) I read that
" ... the iron used is called `besi malela`that originates from beach sand"
and
" ... besi malela is the type of iron that had a lot of impurities ... and considered as less preferable choice in making keris".
Very interesting indeed!
Furthermore, I found a very interesting post by Empu Kumis (thread "What constitutes a `good` keris?", June 2001), describing "the melting of iron from ironsand".
" ... These black sands are used in history by dayaks for traditional ironmaking also. The name of this sand is in Bali bias malalo and in Java pasir malelo like the besi malelo in the older literature of Java ... " " ... for using as material for kerisses its a real good iron." (Quote Empu Kumis)
Fascinating: Keris iron made from beach sand!
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These pictures below are experiments of our German keris man Dietrich Drescher (hopefully Empu Kumis will respond this post). I took these photos at the besalen of Subandi Supaningrat -- one of Surakartan keris maker in the eastern part of Solo, Jawa Tengah (Central Java) medio last year.
As long as I know (I hope Empu Kumis will respond it too), he had made some experiments with Pak Subandi and Boedhi Adhitya (Yogyakartan keris connoisseur) to make blocks or "iron" of Cilacap sands. Cilacap located in the southern coast of Central Jawa. Why did he choose Cilacap? I think Dietrich has a certain reason on this. He selected the Cilacap "iron sand" material with magnetic piece of iron (see picture below) and then melt the iron sand, before being forged in block forms (please correct the right English term) as you see in the picture below ...
And I remember, Dietrich had shown me a newly made "wedung" with this kind of "iron sand" pamor couple of years ago, to prove his 'thesis' on "wesi malela".... I hope this info would help you
GANJAWULUNG (Guangzhou June 15, 2009)