keris for comment..

[A. G. Maisey]

I do not know how these craftsmen placed pins of relatively soft metal into relatively hard wood. In fact, until I read it here, I had no idea that these swasa fittings were sometimes pinned into place, however, I do know how this is done in the European tradition.

Basically, there are two ways of doing this, or a combination of those two ways.

You drill a "pipe hole" into the wood, of marginally smaller diameter than the pin you wish to insert, or you drill as small a hole as you are able, even though this hole may be bigger than the pin, and you then use an adhesive in the hole to grip the pin; a hotmix adhesive such as damar, shellac, or jewellers wax is suitable.

It would surprise me if the craftsmen who fixed these swasa fittings in place did not use similar methods to those used by the European tradition.