GrozaB;
I am a relative newbiew in collecting keris myself and I value and regard Mr A G Maisey as our foremost keris expert in this forum and David is also certainly a very much more experienced collector than me, so I'd give a lot more weight to what they say than what my personal opinion is with regards to blade cleaning and other aspects of keris knowledge.
Having said that, I will say that I am a Malay from Malaysia and keris is in our tradition as much as Indonesians are. for the past several months I've paid more attention to keris and made several visits to keris makers in my area (Kelantan) and met some keris collectors here(malaysia).
when I showed some of my kerisses bought from western collectors with shiny over-cleaned blades , to be fair they did not say it is WRONG, but all have the opinion that the pamor and texture is destroyed by very agressive cleaning.
It is absolutely true that keris should be taken care off and cleaned regularly (once a year) but what is usually involved is cleaning it with immersing in coconut juice for a specific period of time ( 1 day? 1 week?) or rub the blade with lime/lemon juice and washed with soap and brush the rust with toothbrush and dry the keris thouroughly (in shade not under direct sunlight).
My point is, do take care when cleaning and I'd be interested to see your keris before and after the cleaning and restoration.
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