blade cleaning.. need some advice!!

[Boedhi Adhitya]

Originally Posted by LOUIEBLADES

So put the lime in the coconut?

Lew

Yes, Lew. Just mix some lime juices to add acidity of the coconut water. Use sparringly, though.

Basically, there would be 4 general steps for keris etching in traditional way.
1. Soak the blade in coconut water and lime juices solutions. This step only necessary when the blade is heavily corroded or having an old, stubborn etch. The soak would last usually from 1 night to 1 week, depending on the severity. This step should be omitted if we have a clean blade.
2. Mutih (from putih=white. Mutih=to make it clean white). An important step which directly affect your etching result. Pure lime juice is brushed on the blade, then wait a moment until it react with the blade (the color change to yellowish-green), then brush again. Continue brush-and-wait prosess, and add a small amount of juices only when necessary (e.g. when the blade dry-up). You should see the juices get thicken and turn into dark brown during the process. Wash the blade when the juices has became too dark or when the blade has been white-clean. Care should be taken to get rid all the juice/acid, or the rust would start to develop again as soon as the blade dry.
3. Marangi= to apply the warangan solution.
4. Oiling.

Please remind that it is only a general guidance. Details and recipes may vary (a lot!), according to experience and 'personal taste'. I do encourage every keris lovers to have an experience on marangi/etching, as it is an educative experience. But it takes a lot of experience to do it properly, though.

Originally Posted by ZARTANE

if i stop etching it (which i already did), what effect will it give on the blade afterwards, compared if i go on soaking it with ripe coconut water and totally cleaned the blade??

Well, if you clean the acid/juice properly and oil the blade, I think there would be no adverse effect on the blade, other than it is still dirty But I'm not talking from magical/spiritual point of view here

Like Pak Alan already suggest, I also encourage you to clean the blade. If you do some reshaping, I suggest you do it before the mutih process (after the soak), as the lime juice on mutih process would soften the file/abrasive paper marks a little bit. Don't forget to post the result. But it all up to you, of course