Some Photos
 

I recently published some additions to the gallery in my site.

For the most part these are not photos of keris or other weapons, however, a number of people who have viewed these photographs expressed the opinion that I should make them available to a wider audience than those who routinely visit my site.

Here are the links:-


Forge work:-

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

Karaton Surakarta:-

http://www.kerisattosanaji.com/karat...artapageI.html

Musium Radya Pustaka:-

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

THanks Alan!

Great stuff, I particularly enjoyed the forging story and pics!

Cheers

Jason

Great forging action shots, Alan!

Thanks Alan. Great stuff all around. Will you be leaving these up on your site for a while? I am sure they will generate at least a few questions.

Hi Alan, love it!! Is Bapak Subandi smelting his own iron? Bloomery iron is so much nicer to work with than puddled wrought iron! I like the "shields" either side of the anvil to protect against sparks and welding dross.

Thanks for your comments gentlemen.

Yes, the pics will stay up. I've got more capacity in my site than I could ever use, so my objective is to continually add photos as time permits, and as I put them up, I'll leave them there indefinitely.

Bandi was involved in a couple of smelts, but he does not routinely smelt iron. The keris which he normally makes do not use this iron, and if it were requested, I'm certain that the asking price would be beyond any reasonable level. I showed the product of the smelt here simply as an illustration.

Lemmy, the way in which smiths and strikers work in Indonesia is a source of wonder to me.
Yes, the shields are a good idea, but if you wear boots and an apron they are not necessary. Of course, boots and apron are well outside the budget in Indonesia, so the shields are maybe more appropriate, but they do make effective use of tools more difficult.
As does the design of the tools themselves. Using a heavy hammer the most effective way is to place yourself so that on the strike you finish with your right hand at the end of the handle and against your hip bone, you then kick the hammer with your hip at the same time that you lift for the next strike. Using a hammer like this means you can use a few kilos more than you can without using the hip lift.
In Jawa, the handles on heavy hammers are often too short, and are made from either rough timber or two pieces of split bambu wired together. This means you cannot slide your hand on the handle, and every strike is from a dead lift of the hammer. Then you add in the factor of standing at arms length from the anvil. The whole exercise becomes very, very difficult.

Pauzan used to have a wonderful striker. This bloke was about 55-60 kilos wringing wet and five foot nothing tall, and when he was working for Pauzan he was already well into his 50's. He used a 20 lb hammer on the typical short little handle. His method of use was to act as the fulcrum of a pendulum:- he didn't lift the hammer, he'd strike, let the hammer slide off the billet, swing between his legs, and use the swing to bring it down again. More than one way to skin a cat.

Pak Alan,

Trima kasih for sharing this!

Great and interesting pictures! I'm going out now, so I'd have to look at them in detail later! Thanks for sharing, Alan.

Thank you for the pictures, Alan,

I think I see a yataghan and an Arab nimcha on one of them from the Radya Pustaka Museum. One can only wonder how they got there, especially the yataghan.

Regards,
Teodor

These are great pictures Alan! I like the Kraton pictures especially. Makes me want to visit it soon. The last time I went to Solo and Yogyakarta on a tour was when I was a little boy. I bought a Keris-like object from a roaming hawker near the grounds of the Kraton (Solo, I believe). :)

Hi Alan,

I just noticed - the 1st keris in the Kraton series of pictures - the blewah seemed to have been painted on, and the gandar is a bit short. Why is that?

I forget if this pendok was a painted on one or not, but the shortness of it is due to the angle at which it was taken. As I noted, the light for these exhibits is very, very bad. Where I used a flash I had to position the camera so that there was no flash reflection, where I could get an image by upping the ISO, I needed to position myself so I did not block light and did not get reflection. All these inside photos were very difficult to take. There is nothing unusual in the proportions or form of any object photographed, but the angles at which the photos were taken do make some things look a bit peculiar.

Jalan Slamet Riyadi
 

Thank you very much Mr. Maisey for the pictures of Musium Radya Pustaka; it brings back memories.
15 years ago I stayed at the Hotel Dana at Jl. Slamet Riyadi for some time, so I only had to cross the street and I've done that several times! :)

Radya Pustaka is on my visit regularly list.

Light is terrible, exhibits almost unphotographable, maintenance of exhibits is a disgrace,however, I believe that they get virtually no assistance from anybody, so its fortunate that its still there at all. Wouldn't like to predict how much longer it will be there. As I remarked elsewhere, the big plus from a visit there is the feeling that you get of having stepped back in time.