What is Wesi Malelo?

[Amuk Murugul]

Originally Posted by ferrylaki

do you mean sparkling like this one in this sword? or a sparkling one like in this keris?

Hullo everybody,

The 'sparkling' effect may be due to etching, revealing either impurities or martensite formed during the forging heating/cooling process. Perhaps someone with a knowledge in metallurgy may care to elucidate.

Best,

[Greybeard]

Perhaps I should have asked this question at the beginning: Is wesi malelo a pamor material, forged to a steel core, or does the entire blade consist of wesi malelo?

Heinz

[Amuk Murugul]

Originally Posted by Greybeard

Perhaps I should have asked this question at the beginning: Is wesi malelo a pamor material, forged to a steel core, or does the entire blade consist of wesi malelo?

Heinz

Hullo Heinz,

To me 'malela' merely means 'black steel', as opposed to 'tjoendiga' ('white steel')

Best,

[Rick]

Such as this ?

[A. G. Maisey]

I'm not going to comment specifically on the blades pictured, but if we look at the pale pamor material in the pedang we can see little white specks.

When we find a lot of these in ferric material it is very probably caused by forging at low temperatures. Prof Jerzy Piaskowski of Poland conducted a number of analyses of this type of material and this was the conclusion to which he came.

The effect can be quite impressive in a blade that has only plain steel and no contrasting pamor, it looks like little white clouds floating below the surface of the iron or steel, almost three dimensional.

[Greybeard]

Hello Amuk Murugul, Rick, Alan

Thank you all for your inputs.

In an older thread (May 2008) I read that

" ... the iron used is called `besi malela`that originates from beach sand"


and

" ... besi malela is the type of iron that had a lot of impurities ... and considered as less preferable choice in making keris".

Very interesting indeed!

Furthermore, I found a very interesting post by Empu Kumis (thread "What constitutes a `good` keris?", June 2001), describing "the melting of iron from ironsand".
" ... These black sands are used in history by dayaks for traditional ironmaking also. The name of this sand is in Bali bias malalo and in Java pasir malelo like the besi malelo in the older literature of Java ... " " ... for using as material for kerisses its a real good iron." (Quote Empu Kumis)

Fascinating: Keris iron made from beach sand!

Heinz

[ganjawulung]

Originally Posted by Greybeard

In an older thread (May 2008) I read that

" ... the iron used is called `besi malela`that originates from beach sand"


and

" ... besi malela is the type of iron that had a lot of impurities ... and considered as less preferable choice in making keris".

Very interesting indeed!

Furthermore, I found a very interesting post by Empu Kumis (thread "What constitutes a `good` keris?", June 2001), describing "the melting of iron from ironsand".
" ... These black sands are used in history by dayaks for traditional ironmaking also. The name of this sand is in Bali bias malalo and in Java pasir malelo like the besi malelo in the older literature of Java ... " " ... for using as material for kerisses its a real good iron." (Quote Empu Kumis)

Fascinating: Keris iron made from beach sand!

These pictures below are experiments of our German keris man Dietrich Drescher (hopefully Empu Kumis will respond this post). I took these photos at the besalen of Subandi Supaningrat -- one of Surakartan keris maker in the eastern part of Solo, Jawa Tengah (Central Java) medio last year.

As long as I know (I hope Empu Kumis will respond it too), he had made some experiments with Pak Subandi and Boedhi Adhitya (Yogyakartan keris connoisseur) to make blocks or "iron" of Cilacap sands. Cilacap located in the southern coast of Central Jawa. Why did he choose Cilacap? I think Dietrich has a certain reason on this. He selected the Cilacap "iron sand" material with magnetic piece of iron (see picture below) and then melt the iron sand, before being forged in block forms (please correct the right English term) as you see in the picture below ...

And I remember, Dietrich had shown me a newly made "wedung" with this kind of "iron sand" pamor couple of years ago, to prove his 'thesis' on "wesi malela".... I hope this info would help you

GANJAWULUNG (Guangzhou June 15, 2009)