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Originally Posted by S.Workman
I am quoting myself to report failure on this pair of keris. One of them I now have serious doubts about needing a wash with arsenic, I think it needs to be acid washed and etched. There is no trace of pamor at all. The other one needed the arsenic wash to bring up the pamor, but it came out even worse than the first time. I think the problem is that I used bottled lime juice - it was not from concentrate, its the real thing, but I don't think the acid was concentrated enough to put the arsenic into solution. I would experiment more, but it will have to wait.
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Using warangan is a delicate and tricky process sometimes requiring multiple tries to get satisfactory results. Perhaps you can tell us more about your process. I am not sure if you are following directions you found on this site or somewhere else, but it is important that your blade has been completely cleaned of all previous warangan first, brought down to what people call a "white" blade through soaking in a mild acidic bath and scrubbing the blade clean. I have used pineapple juice in the past. I would indeed recommend fresh limes and laboratory quality arsenic (As2 O3). Weather is also an important factor. The process doesn't work well in cold and i like to work outdoors in open shade on a bright sunny day, but Alan might have some better advice for you on this as he has far more experience with the process than i do.