Black stain spreading on keris during vinegar cleaning

[A. G. Maisey]

Welding in Jawa is traditionally done in teak charcoal, the material is not welded with a flux, no flux is necessary.

I do not know the process used in old Malaya.

[Interested Party]

Interesting, today I stumbled onto the tidbit that brown rice contains more arsenic than white rice. I wonder if that means arsenic would be most concentrated in the bran? In addition rices from California, India, and Thailand are lower in arsenic than most. Second postulation; if as mentioned above, the concentration of arsenic in rice is negligible maybe rice water is used for the starch content to help evenly coat the blade for the week the reaction time the rice water/sulphur/salt slurry takes to properly stain a blade.

Sort of a related question. Does anyone know how much ground realgar one would need to stain an average keris blade?

[A. G. Maisey]

Not all realgar is equal, so the quantity required depends on the realgar, as does the result.