Richard, from 1980 through to the present, every maker of keris that I know in Solo, Central Jawa has used old iron or steel, that has been purchased from scrap metal yards. A couple of well-known makers whom I know particularly well have used iron from old bridges, and iron from old ships. Usually when they get lucky with the material they've bought they go back and buy as much as they can.
I have taken good quality wrought iron from 19th century carriages, and given it to a maker to use for special orders, normally I have cleaned this by folding and welded 7 or 8 times before I take it, this reduces the weight of the material necessary to carry.
I have been told, but I am unable to vouch for this information, that it is common practice in Madura to use ferric material from old motor bikes and bicycles:- mufflers, spokes, sections of frame.
The smiths in Koripan, and also in a village near Boyolali (I've forgotten the name) mostly use motor vehicle springs to make tools. These craftsmen are not keris makers, but blacksmiths.
I was taught keris making in Solo, and for the forgings that I made there I bought the material from a scrap metal yard. For the kerises that I made in Australia I used old carriage iron that I scavenged from a couple of farms. I was taught to make keris using only hand tools, no electricity, no shortcuts. No electric grinders, no power hammers. In Jawa I paid two strikers, in Australia I used a 4 pound hammer and a 12 pound hammer with a hold-down tool. In fact, the actual forging is the easy part of making a keris and doesn't take all that long, even using 1000 year old technology. The hard part is the interpretation and the carving.
During the 1970's smiths in the area around Prambanan were in habit of raiding grave sites and scavenging iron from the graves, which was recycled into modern tools. I once bought a medium sized box full of badly damaged, excavated old tools, arits & etc, that I welded into a billet and intended to use to make a copy of a keris Buda, regrettably this billet was stolen. When I say "old" those excavated tools I welded into a billet were Buda age tools.
In my experience, every smith or keris maker I've ever known in Jawa has used recycled material.
I am not contradicting Rasjid here, Rasjid has different contacts to my own, and he operates at a different level. What he relates is undoubtedly correct in accord with his own experience.
Historically, keris were probably made from material recycled from tools imported from principally China.
Going back into very early history, there was smelting activity at several sites in Jawa, but regrettably it seems that most of the material produced was very probably high phosphorus iron. This material was not really suitable for use as either tool or weapon, so it was combined with the precious imported irons from outside Jawa, in order to extend the quantity of useable material, and the result was pamor.
Nickle bearing irons also entered Jawa from Luwu in Sulawesi, but this material was not around during the early years of the keris.
A few years ago Dietrich Drescher did some experimentation/research in company with one of the Solo keris makers --- Subandi I think --- and his results confirmed both the possibility of iron production in Jawa, and the quality of the material produced.
President Obama's mother, S. Ann Dunham wrote:-
"Surviving against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia"
For anybody with an interest in Javanese smithing, this work probably should be at the top of the reading list. It deals more with sociology than the mechanics of smithing, but it permits an insight into the life of Javanese smiths, and in the absence of that there can be little or no understanding of how they work.
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