Introduction

A. G. Maisey · 3rd February 2017, 09:55 PM

The pamor has been made by taking two twisted rods and welding them together.

The weld that joins the two rods should be tight and not display any gap.

Look closely at the joint between the two separate pieces of twisted material from which the pamor has been made.

There is a particular technique that is used to achieve a tight, clean joint with the technology available to smiths in Indonesia. The maker of this keris has not yet mastered this technique. I am not at liberty to explain this technique.

The forge work involved in making a keris is smith's work. Many, many empus and pande keris do not do their own welding, usually it is the makers who are just starting who do their own forge work. As soon as a maker gets a bit of a name for himself, he'll only pick up a hammer to have his photo taken. Forge work is hard, hot work. My normal weight is 82 kilos, if I do 6 hours of forge work, especially welding, that weight will drop to 79 kilos.

The empu's job is to know the techniques used to produce the pamor patterns and the correct dimensions and form of the finished forging. He uses the forge workers as if they were tools to produce these results. The smith needs two helpers (panjak) for heavy forging, he needs one helper for most other things.

In olden times the empu would normally have four, or even five, helpers on hand during the forging of a keris, and he would move these helpers around so that no one man could ever see enough to understand the full process. I own a copy of an empu's text book that was written under the aegis of the Surakarta Karaton. This text is very explicit in explaining how and when the various helpers are to be used.

Karyo di Kromo did exactly the same thing with Isaac Groneman.

To return to this keris.

I suspect that the garap of this keris will be pretty acceptable, but the forge work is not yet good enough.

3rd February 2017, 09:55 PM	#8
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,029	The pamor has been made by taking two twisted rods and welding them together. The weld that joins the two rods should be tight and not display any gap. Look closely at the joint between the two separate pieces of twisted material from which the pamor has been made. There is a particular technique that is used to achieve a tight, clean joint with the technology available to smiths in Indonesia. The maker of this keris has not yet mastered this technique. I am not at liberty to explain this technique. The forge work involved in making a keris is smith's work. Many, many empus and pande keris do not do their own welding, usually it is the makers who are just starting who do their own forge work. As soon as a maker gets a bit of a name for himself, he'll only pick up a hammer to have his photo taken. Forge work is hard, hot work. My normal weight is 82 kilos, if I do 6 hours of forge work, especially welding, that weight will drop to 79 kilos. The empu's job is to know the techniques used to produce the pamor patterns and the correct dimensions and form of the finished forging. He uses the forge workers as if they were tools to produce these results. The smith needs two helpers (panjak) for heavy forging, he needs one helper for most other things. In olden times the empu would normally have four, or even five, helpers on hand during the forging of a keris, and he would move these helpers around so that no one man could ever see enough to understand the full process. I own a copy of an empu's text book that was written under the aegis of the Surakarta Karaton. This text is very explicit in explaining how and when the various helpers are to be used. Karyo di Kromo did exactly the same thing with Isaac Groneman. To return to this keris. I suspect that the garap of this keris will be pretty acceptable, but the forge work is not yet good enough.