That is an interesting way of counting Seerp, and I guess it could be a valid way of counting, depending upon where one lives and upon one's background.
When we discuss this subject in English we use the word "layer", and there can be a couple of different ways in which to understand the word "layer", but in Javanese the word we use is "sap", and sap can be understood as an item (ie, layer) in a stack, or as an item in a row.
If we start to produce pamor with just two layers of iron plus one layer of contrasting material we have 3 layers of material, if we weld that stack of three layers, cut it in half, and place the two halves one on top of the other, we have 3 + 3 = 6 layers, if we then weld the two pieces of iron & contrasting material together, cut this block in half, we have two pieces of iron and contrasting material each of which has 6 layers of material, so, 6 + 6 = 12. Counting in this way, that is by always just cutting (or bending) the material in half, and counting total layers of material, 8 doublings will give us 384 nominal layers of material.
The point is this:- just because two layers of iron are joined together does not make those two layers one layer, it is still two layers, and if the side of the forging is polished, etched and examined under magnification, those two layers will be seen.
But then, in the counting of pamor layers we do not count total material layers, we only count the layers of contrasting material, and we only count that contrasting material on one side of the blade.
In a Surakarta keris the number of sap of contrasting material should be 128. There are various ways in which to reach this number of 128, but ideally it should be reached by 8 doublings, the usual way that this is done is by a 1 > 2 > 4 > 8 > 16 > 32 > 64 > 128 progression. The number of doublings is significant, because the number 8 is the number of the naga, and incidentally, also of the elephant, in the Candra Sangkala.
Yes, there is always a loss of material when a weld is taken, but the important thing is the nominal layers, not the actual layers, and more important again is how that nominal number of layers was reached.
It is all a matter of perspective.
Of course, for commercially produced keris, and keris that are not made as pusaka or for some other special reason, how the pamor is welded is not particularly important, only economy and the end result matter. However, the number of layers of pamor is the number of sap of contrasting material, it is not the total number of layers of material, no matter how that count is carried out.
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