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[Pendita65]

Mr. Maisey,
Thank you for your response to my posting. And I think it,s made before WW2.But I can’t prove this.

There was dammar varnish also on the tombak and this I scraped of with my thumbnail. I will do that with the Keris blade as well. As a teacher in furniture restoration the woodwork ain’t a problem. I haven’t found out what kind of wood the gander is made off. It is a very light wood and to my feeling the sapwood part of wood but what species I don’t, have a clue.
Can I ask you what you mean with a foot at a gambar ?
I post some pics of the Javanese Keris. I think underneath the varnish is a nice pamor as you can see in the picture.

Best wishes for 2024 as at your part it already is the new year.

Martin

[A. G. Maisey]

The foot of the atasan is the part of the atasan that projects below the body and accepts the tongues of the gandar, not all wrongkos have this foot.

The damage to the gandar is not at all unusual in Javanese wrongkos, a normal fix is as you described, just some newspaper or a couple of pieces of light cardboard fixed in place. Yes, a new gandar would be a distinct improvement, we use a tool called a segrek to hollow out the inside of the gandar. If we make it without a joint, the easy way to make one is from two pieces of wood, it should be a soft wood.

This appears to be a pretty fair sort of a blade, it will restore well, in my opinion it is definitely pre-WWII, probably second half 19th century.

This entire keris has the potential to be restored into a very nice keris.

Terminology.

the entire scabbard is called a wrongko (warangka) in Jawa.

the top cross part is the atasan (top piece) or gambar

the pendok & gandar you know

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by Pendita65

Mr. Maisey,
Thank you for your response to my posting. And I think it,s made before WW2.But I can’t prove this.

There was dammar varnish also on the tombak and this I scraped of with my thumbnail. I will do that with the Keris blade as well. As a teacher in furniture restoration the woodwork ain’t a problem. I haven’t found out what kind of wood the gander is made off. It is a very light wood and to my feeling the sapwood part of wood but what species I don’t, have a clue.
Can I ask you what you mean with a foot at a gambar ?
I post some pics of the Javanese Keris. I think underneath the varnish is a nice pamor as you can see in the picture.

Best wishes for 2024 as at your part it already is the new year.

Martin

Happy New Year Martin!

Your second keris I like much more than the other one! When you are used to working with wood it will be an easy project for you to give it a new gandar. Be very careful with the pendok, the material looks very thin to my eyes. It's not the best pendok I've seen of this type but a good one and worth restoration.
The complete keris is a gayaman keris in Jogya style, blade is dapur tilam upih and the pamor is nice, maybe batu lapak, surely worth getting a new stain. Nice keris and I am curious to see it restored.
This will be a very nice keris for every collection IMVHO.

Regards,
Detlef

[Pendita65]

Hello Detlef,

thank you for the message and hope you had a gute rutsch ins neue jahr too.
I don't see any problems creating a gandar ain't a difficult task for me. Will search for some djati sapwood as i don't want to use European or African wood for this. Will post pictures as soon as i start with the project.

Best wishes, Martin

[Pendita65]

Hi all,

I cleaned my Keris from the dammar varnish today and this is how it looks now I took some images from the wilah. I also had in my spare parts a nice old silvered pendok for it.

The pamor is it Batu lupak or is it pamor kul buntet? I am trying to identify it but it’s difficult for me.
Hope some of the experts can tell me more.

Regards, Martin.

[David]

Originally Posted by Pendita65

I cleaned my Keris from the dammar varnish today and this is how it looks now I took some images from the wilah. I also had in my spare parts a nice old silvered pendok for it.

Martin, i'm not seeing the photos on my end.

[A. G. Maisey]

I believe most people would classify the pamor in the sorsoran as Kul Buntet.

[kai]

It doesn't look inserted to me, Alan.

To me, this motif at the base seems to be a part of the overall pamor (with much of it now lost to erosion).

Regards,
Kai

[Pendita65]

Originally Posted by David

Martin, i'm not seeing the photos on my end.

Hi David i guess something went wrong with the photo's i just posted them again.

[Pendita65]

Detail of the pendok as replacement.