This knowledge has actually been passed for many generations by acehnesse blacksmith. And because of very close & good relationship with these blacksmith, they passed the information to me. I've done this methode on my gloomy rencong hilt made from black buffalo horn and i'm successfully make this gloomy one into shiny and pretty one. I belief many of you is a blacksmith who deal with horn material or a collector who have a horn material in their collection. So I'm passing this information to all of you.
The Acehnesse, rubbed the horn material with "serumpet leaves" after they finish shapping the horn material such as hilt and scabbard. This is the picture of serumpet which send directly from aceh.
This is the detail of the leave. I dont know about species / family name of this leaves.
This serumpet leaves is more or less almost similiar effect with sandpaper grid 1500/1600. Once the horn is smooth enough / already smooth then they used "Abu Gosok". "Abu gosok" is kind of wooden ashes, when i was a child ( in 80's - 90's ) we used "abu gosok" to washes the dishes / plate. Today, only on suburn or villages that still used "abu gosok" for washes the dishes/plate, i can not find this abu gosok in jakarta or bogor.
This is the picture of "abu gosok".
After asking the blacksmith, they teach me how to create "abu gosok" with the same quality as their "abu gosok". You can create "abu gosok" by burning the coconut fibre till the fibre became white ashes. Before I burn the coconut fibre, I put in the sun to dry. After the coconut fibre became so dry, then I burned it till became abu gosok.