Keris with pesi repair?

[A. G. Maisey]

Thilo, normally the tang would be forged into the forging used to carve the keris from, but if there was a miscalculation and a specific numeric value needed to be satisfied, then one way of doing this would be to mechanically fix the tang.

Yes, the tang could be scarf welded, however it would be useless to scarf weld to the uncarved forging, as the carving would cut through the weld, and a weld after the carving was complete would destroy artistic value and be very obvious.

The easy solution would be to mechanically fix the tang, and if this were to be done with a shrink fit near to the end of carving, another weld heat could be put into the sorsoran and the tang would be quite firmly attached.

All this is hypothesis, but when we so have many easy ways to repair a tang, I just cannot see anybody going for this very difficult method of inletting, or dovetailing.

I have made a few keris, and I do understand the making process.I have put forward the idea of miscalculation, but there is also the possibility of a flaw that is uncovered during carving. If a flaw is uncovered that interferes with the integrity of the point or the tang, one way of rescuing something from the exercise would be to remove the flawed section of forging and fix a separate tang.

Possibly if we thought about this matter long enough we could come up with other possibilities, but the one possibility that I have some difficulty in accepting is the one of a repair. It just doesn't make sense.