Kalis with unusual Lamination

[CharlesS]

Spunjer, you magnet to Moro beauties....and I do mean swords!
"Adeg" loosely translates into "hairs standing", or "hair standing on end" as allusion to the many straight lines found in the lamination pattern.

I agree with you completely that the sword should not be darkened further. The way you have it now is more likely to be the way it was seen my Moros in its day. Though Battara has shown us some nice examples of heavily darkened Moro blades, I believe those are generally anomalies to lighter etching, more typically done by citric acids. I think your's is truer to form as is.

I am not sure I agree with the assertion that the laminated blades are rarer than the twistcore examples....certainly this would not be true of the many examples I have seen. Of course, on the other hand, we would have to examine an ENORMOUS number of blades to make any such assertion credible.

[T. Koch]

That is some truly gorgeous pattern-welding, thanks so much for sharing, Spunjer and congratulations on your new toy!

If one wanted to do a darker etch, how should one go about it? I am a total newb to this etching business, but I do think I feel an addiction coming on.


All the best and enjoy it in good health, - Thor

[Spunjer]

Hello Thor,
Thank you! As far as lamination, i find ferric chloride tend to have darker results than vinegar or any type of citric acid. On this particular blade, i used white vinegar. They're easier to control than FeCl. I believe i applied about three coats before neutralizing the vinegar with baking soda.

[kai]

Hello Charles,

I agree with you completely that the sword should not be darkened further. The way you have it now is more likely to be the way it was seen my Moros in its day. Though Battara has shown us some nice examples of heavily darkened Moro blades, I believe those are generally anomalies to lighter etching, more typically done by citric acids. I think your's is truer to form as is.

Setting aside taste and personal preferences, I believe this needs to be discussed/researched much more before we can reach any conclusions about long-gone traditions.

"Adeg" loosely translates into "hairs standing", or "hair standing on end" as allusion to the many straight lines found in the lamination pattern.

The main point being that the lamination kinda "stands up" from the plane of the blade (i.e. usually more or less vertical) which is true for twistcore and this kind of linear pattern.

As opposed to the mlumah construction where the layers of lamination are arranged more or less parallel to the plane of the blade (local "irregularities" notwithstanding). In also very rare cases (regarding Moro/Malay kris), it can be safely assumed this was intentionally done to create a specific/ornate/complex pattern while in the majority of cases the pamor seems more like "random" mottling. Still, it often can be seen that the panday was working with a obvious goal in his mind and in another good part of the blades, the pattern was used to obtain even more striking visual effects (usually a kind of contour effect like on topographical maps) which include variants with another kind of linear pattern.

I am not sure I agree with the assertion that the laminated blades are rarer than the twistcore examples...

I referred only to linear adeg vs twistcore adeg. Both are rare and there may be a sampling bias towards twistcore; still, I believe the difference in numbers is quite striking!

Regards,
Kai

[T. Koch]

Aha, thanks for the info! So far I've only tried my luck with warm vinegar. I will have to try getting my hands on some FeCl and get on with the experiments!


With grattitude, - Thor

[kai]

Hello Thor,

So far I've only tried my luck with warm vinegar. I will have to try getting my hands on some FeCl and get on with the experiments!

FeCl3 is really corrosive - think of hydrochloric acid (HCl) with some rust added! Make sure to read the scattered threads touching on etching and verify that your neutralizing really works!

Regards,
Kai

[Spunjer]

regarding the term "adeg/mlumah":
*i'm really not familiar with indonesian terminology, and it's even harder to apply those terms to what it signifies.
*
in what twistcores (moro) i've seen, i've notice that it falls in two categories: a) the rough, 3-D texture type, and the ones that are smooth types, similar to the example pictured above.
my question is, would the term "adeg/mlumah" apply to those two categories?

[kai]

Hello Ron,

both terms refer only to the orientation of the laminations. The surface treatment isn't covered and would depend on local Indo/Malay traditions.

I agree that utilizing central Javanese definitions/words for Moro kris is not optimal. However, the same could be argued for neighbouring cultures like Sunda in W Java. OTOH, the Jawa terminology is widely known and de facto lingua franka throughout the keris world nowadays with local terminology regrettably lost to time way too often...

Regards,
Kai

[Spunjer]

 I agree that utilizing central Javanese definitions/words for Moro kris is not optimal. However, the same could be argued for neighbouring cultures like Sunda in W Java. OTOH, the Jawa terminology is widely known and de facto lingua franka throughout the keris world nowadays with local terminology regrettably lost to time way too often...

i kinda wonder about the Moro twistcores. i noticed that there are different patterns involved in twistcores. i do wonder if these patterns have significance not unlike the indo kerises...