keris jalak with rare pamor

[A. G. Maisey]

Pamor colour depends on four things:-

1)--- material

2)--- the skill of the person doing the stain

3)--- the materials available to carry out the stain job

4)--- the weather


these four factors provide the answer to every variation noted in the colour of stained blades

[satsujinken]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Pamor colour depends on four things:-

1)--- material

2)--- the skill of the person doing the stain

3)--- the materials available to carry out the stain job

4)--- the weather


these four factors provide the answer to every variation noted in the colour of stained blades

CMIIW, as I am a newbie in this field, but as far as I know, balinese tend to stain their blade blacker than javanese keris ? my friend here named the style of staining of balinese keris as dongsalibing

the final result is the balinese keris is much darker and smoother than its javanese counterparts

I may be wrong, as I never encounter this information on any books, but from several friend of mine, who are in this field for couple of decades

look at the comparison below, keris bali first, keris jawa second

[Atlantia]

Alan, Rick, Satsujinken

Thanks gentlemen, I apprecaite the help. It's always a learning curve for me in the Keris section

[A. G. Maisey]

Donny, the reason that Balinese blades often appear to be darker than Javanese and other blades is because Balinese blades do not have a textured surface.

The factors that I have listed do cover the reasons for blade colour.

Here is a link to a blade that I made some years ago.

http://www.kerisattosanaji.com/PBXIImaisey2.html

It is a Javanese form, but a Balinese finish. If I had done a textured finish to the surface of this blade it would not appear so dark. However, some Javanese blades even with a textured surface can be pretty dark, its all about the factors that I've listed. Use the "INDEX" tab on the linked page and and you can see recent blades made by other craftsmen working in Surakarta 20 years ago:- some are very black, others are not.

One thing is true:- you cannot alter the colour of the material with which a blade is made. Most older blades are simply impossible to get really black. Really old blades often have pamor that provides contrast by use of high phosphorus and low phosphorus irons, and all you ever get there is dark grey and light grey.

Moderators:- my apologies for the linked pages, but I do not have these photos on file any longer, and I'm not going to photograph them again.

[David]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Moderators:- my apologies for the linked pages, but I do not have these photos on file any longer, and I'm not going to photograph them again.

Understood Alan, but now you are required never to take this page down.

[A. G. Maisey]

I probably will take it down as soon as I have time to do better photos --- which will not be some time soon --- I can now produce better images than these ones, but the replacement page will be the same content as the present one.

[satsujinken]

on other case, if you haven't heard it

news released only recently in early september 2012

Surakarta will provide IDR 30 billion budget to build Keris Museum
there are some serious talks and the government seemed to be agreeing the proposal

it is planned to be study center for tosan aji, so that this precious heritage may be preserved for future generations (good that indonesians starting to value their heritage)

according to plan - it will be finished in 2015

I certainly hope to see you there someday

[satsujinken]

if it's up to me, I will send you invitation to come to Indonesia, grant you honorary citizenship, grant you title "living national treasure" and build you a school solely on the study of tosan aji
and will pay you well to pass on your knowledge ...

sadly it's just a dream ...

i love the way you answered directly using technical terms. Nobody ever taught me the composition of pamor made by low and high phosphorus content in iron ... all I know was pamor is mainly made from nickel, some meteorites and so on

this kind of knowledge must be preserved ... do you ever wrote books on keris ? if so, where can I buy one ?

now i would like to ask ... in ancient times, how did empus selected materials for making keris (considering the shortage of good quality iron back then ? is it like making tamahagane for japanese sword, where only the best materials are used for swords - lesser quality ones going to be housewares / gardening tools.

i have tons of questions and I hope you don't mind sparing some time to share your knowledge

thank you
regards
donny

[David]

Originally Posted by satsujinken

i love the way you answered directly using technical terms. Nobody ever taught me the composition of pamor made by low and high phosphorus content in iron ... all I know was pamor is mainly made from nickel, some meteorites and so on

If you can find the work of Prof. Jerzy Piaskowski of Poland, he did some detailed analysis of old keris blades some time back that details this high and low phosphorous content in iron. The pamor patterns in these old blades did not come from nickel content. Not quite sure where you can get a hold of this research currently, but maybe others can help.

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks for the compliments Donny.

Actually I have a pretty long history in Jawa, beginning back in the 1960's. I have known Empu Pauzan Pusposukadgo since 1974, Empu Suparman Supowijoyo (Alm.) was my teacher from 1982 through until the time of his departure, I have passed knowledge that I have to other pandai keris in Indonesia. I have visited Solo most years since 1970 for a minimum of two months each year. One way and another I've got a lot of background in Indonesia.

I knew Jerzy Piaskowski from about 1988 and provided him with cultural background and material for analysis. I have lost contact with him now, and I am afraid that he has probably left us. If he is still with us he would be close to 100 years old. The paper that David mentions is only one of his analyses on keris technology, his most comprehensive was never completed but was published in part by the Japan Metals Institute.I don't think any of Jerzy's work is online anywhere, and probably the only way to get it is to go through a library network.

I myself have written on keris, but only very short papers that deal with the particular aspects that interest me. My interest is cultural and societal, rather than technological, but I do also have a good understanding of the technology. As for a book, it will never happen. Books cost money to write and produce. I have better things to do with my time and my money than write books.

As for selection of materials. There are a number of ways that a skilled smith can use to select material suitable for a tool or weapon. In very early Javanese iron technology it is probable that the indigenous smiths were using tools imported from mostly China to provide the material for weapons, in other words, they knew what they had before they started. However, there was some smelting of iron from beach sands carried out at least in Jawa, and possibly in other places. The material from these beach sands was not of particularly good quality, and it was mixed with the imported material in order to extend the quantity of the imported material This of course resulted in early pamor. A few years ago Dietrich Drescher did some very good work on the technology of indigenous iron smelting, I think there is a paper on his work and results in German.

One test for suitability of an iron for tool and weapon use is to bring it to high cherry, let it cool in air, place it in a vice and hit it with a hammer. If it is high phosphorus or contains some other impurities in excessive quantity it will snap. Apart from that, you can always tell if material is any good as soon as you start to work it. There is a lot of old iron around, material from 100 years ago and more, that is what we call "hot short". A lot of old cart rims are like this. If you try to forge it it breaks up like cottage cheese under the hammer, so you "wash" it (wasuh). You do this by forging out, folding back and welding it a number of times until the billet does not give off sparks at weld heat when it is hit. By that time the volume of material has reduced and the billet is quite dense with no pores or very small pores in the grain. When its like this you can go ahead an use it. In my experience you need to do this fold and weld process around 6 to 10 times before you get the material clean enough to use. Its a similar thing if you work meteoritic material, you need to wash it by folding and welding before its clean enough to use.

In fact, the quality of material used in a keris blade did not need to be particularly high, because a keris is primarily a thrusting weapon, it needs a sharp point, not a cutting edge that will stay sharp. An arit needs higher quality steel than a keris does, because it is a work tool that needs to stay sharp for several hours work without going back to the stone.

The traditional knife used to cut rice was the ani-ani. This is a tiny steel blade in a wooden mount that fits in the palm of the hand. In use it cannot be seen. The story is that this was used in order not to frighten the spirit of the rice. The fact is that to make a bigger blade of the necessary high quality steel would have been prohibitively expensive. This is called making a virtue of necessity.

I have heard rumours about the keris museum, but it will surprise me if it eventuates. The driving force behind the keris revival in Solo was Panembahan Harjonegoro (Go Tik Swan, Alm.), and he passed away a few years ago. Without somebody to drive this idea I doubt that it will come to fruition, simply because there is so much more that Solo needs to spend money on rather than keris. But I could be wrong, and I hope I am.

[satsujinken]

Originally Posted by David

If you can find the work of Prof. Jerzy Piaskowski of Poland, he did some detailed analysis of old keris blades some time back that details this high and low phosphorous content in iron. The pamor patterns in these old blades did not come from nickel content. Not quite sure where you can get a hold of this research currently, but maybe others can help.

Thanks, David

I found the title of the book "Technology of Early Indonesian Keris : The Results of Metallographic Examinations of Ganja's (upper Part of the Keris) Separately Forged" ... written by him and Alan :grin ...

unfortunately I cannot find the book anywhere ...