Thoughts on this Keris

[A. G. Maisey]

Seerp, I think what David is looking for is that unique Widmanstätten pattern, and what I used to be looking for was concrete evidence that the contrasting material in a blade did indeed come from a meteor.

In your photos I can see contrasting material, but how do we know that this came from a meteor unless we saw it included in the forging when the material was still in the forge?

That is problem. We cannot pick up something that we have no previous knowledge of and carry out any testing that will definitely confirm that the item contains meteor.

During the 1980's and 1990's I made a lot of pamor and nickel damascus. I made pamor using several different types of nickelous material, including pure nickel and Arizona meteorite. I made a lot of damascus using pure nickel, and few pieces of damascus using meteorite.

If you presented me with a mix of various pieces of pamor, polished, etched & stained, I doubt that I could tell what material had been used to create the pamor. If I had a piece of meteoritic material in my hand, that is pure meteorite, nothing else, that had been folded and welded 8 or 10 times, then polished, etched, stained, I could not tell if it was meteorite or not.

If I use the traditional "touch test" on a blade that contains meteorite, I can detect a very tiny, almost imperceptible difference between the meteorite blade and a blade that has used commercial nickel, or some nickel alloy.

But then this might just be my imagination, because the blades that I do this sort of test with are only blades that it might be expected could contain meteorite.

The point is this:- we cannot confirm the presence of meteoritic material in a blade after that material has been through the forge welding process.

Actually, I don't consider meteoritic material to be anything special, the cleaning process requires great care and a delicate touch if you wish the resultant billet to be pure meteorite, but once you get to using it as a component part of a blade it is no more nor less difficult than any other nickelous material, and when the blade is finished --- well, I've already commented on that.

The photos are of a keris that I commissioned from a maker in Solo, I will not name him as he is a very private man and I do not have his permission to use his name, enough to say that I considered him to be very talented. He retired from keris work some years ago.

This blade definitely does contain meteor. I made a billet of pure Arizona meteorite that I gave to this maker and it was used in this blade.

This is the only keris that I know of that unquestionably contains meteoritic material.

[A. G. Maisey]

Mr. Ross

Yeah, I've got a little WWI farriers forge with a hand blower, not much good for serious work, fire bed too shallow, cannot get it to welding heat, alright for little light work.

The forge I used for blade work with coke had a 12" deep firebed, about 5" wide and 15" long. It was built in an old truck wheel and used a vacuum cleaner as the blower. Bottom blown.

The sort of thing you are talking about I never got involved in, if I lit up the forge I had a specific job in mind, I never played with things, coke was too hard to get, and now is close to impossible to get.

With charcoal I used a more shallow forge and much wider, side blown. You tend to use a lot more charcoal to get a job done than you do coke.

Coal is OK for general work, but its filthy stuff and I dislike intensely using it.

[Anthony G.]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Seerp, I think what David is looking for is that unique Widmanstätten pattern, and what I used to be looking for was concrete evidence that the contrasting material in a blade did indeed come from a meteor.

In your photos I can see contrasting material, but how do we know that this came from a meteor unless we saw it included in the forging when the material was still in the forge?

That is problem. We cannot pick up something that we have no previous knowledge of and carry out any testing that will definitely confirm that the item contains meteor.

During the 1980's and 1990's I made a lot of pamor and nickel damascus. I made pamor using several different types of nickelous material, including pure nickel and Arizona meteorite. I made a lot of damascus using pure nickel, and few pieces of damascus using meteorite.

If you presented me with a mix of various pieces of pamor, polished, etched & stained, I doubt that I could tell what material had been used to create the pamor. If I had a piece of meteoritic material in my hand, that is pure meteorite, nothing else, that had been folded and welded 8 or 10 times, then polished, etched, stained, I could not tell if it was meteorite or not.

If I use the traditional "touch test" on a blade that contains meteorite, I can detect a very tiny, almost imperceptible difference between the meteorite blade and a blade that has used commercial nickel, or some nickel alloy.

But then this might just be my imagination, because the blades that I do this sort of test with are only blades that it might be expected could contain meteorite.

The point is this:- we cannot confirm the presence of meteoritic material in a blade after that material has been through the forge welding process.

Actually, I don't consider meteoritic material to be anything special, the cleaning process requires great care and a delicate touch if you wish the resultant billet to be pure meteorite, but once you get to using it as a component part of a blade it is no more nor less difficult than any other nickelous material, and when the blade is finished --- well, I've already commented on that.

The photos are of a keris that I commissioned from a maker in Solo, I will not name him as he is a very private man and I do not have his permission to use his name, enough to say that I considered him to be very talented. He retired from keris work some years ago.

This blade definitely does contain meteor. I made a billet of pure Arizona meteorite that I gave to this maker and it was used in this blade.

This is the only keris that I know of that unquestionably contains meteoritic material.

Beautiful awesome piece.

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks Anthony, yes, at his best --- which was most definitely not always --- I consider this man to have been the best exponent of his generation of the classic Surakarta keris.

Here it is in full dress.

[David]

Thanks for showing that beautiful keris.
You haven't yet, and that is probably by intent, but are you willing to make any comments about the push dagger this young smith claims has retained the Widmanstätten pattern from the meteorite he used. It has always been my understanding that is not possible once forged, but my experience with actual forging is limited to a few simple projects done with old railroad spikes so i have no expertise to go on here. But it sure seems like a spurious claim to me.

[Seerp Visser]

To my knowlegde, the Widmanstatten structure disappeares at a temperature of about or some over 700 degrees C.
The materials for forging the dagger are too cold to forgeweld at that temperature.
Widmanstatten structures are formed by extremely slow cooling of the material during millions of years.
So the meteoritic material has been inserted in te dagger cold, or at least on a temperature lower than 700 degrees C.

[A. G. Maisey]

Spot on Seerp. Jerzy said pretty much the same thing about ID of meteorite after the forge weld process.

It is a really pretty keris David, in fact much better than the photo shows, that photo was done more than ten years ago, my equipment and understanding has improved a bit during the last 10 or 12 years.

As for our young wouldbe blade smith, I'd just as soon not comment, let other people teach him what's right & what's wrong.

[Anthony G.]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Thanks Anthony, yes, at his best --- which was most definitely not always --- I consider this man to have been the best exponent of his generation of the classic Surakarta keris.

Here it is in full dress.

I am lost for word. Even the dress is awesome.

[Gustav]

In A. Weihrauch's thesis there is a dokumentation of an experiment - they made a weld sample with different ferric materials, and one of them was an iron meteorite.

Even after forging and welding the Widmanstätten pattern is still recognisable in enlargement 500:1.

There is a remark "after a longer glow they (the W-patterns) disappear completely.".

[A. G. Maisey]

That is very interesting information Gustav.

I assume that Weihrauch was talking about welding in the forge?

It is interesting, but also confusing.

The weld temperature of iron is + 2500F (1400C) at and above this temperature the surface of the iron is beginning to show white, it is sticky and on the point of liquification

The weld temperature of most steels is + 1700F (900C) and it is into high orange in colour, the surface is sticky but not liquifying.

Nickel has a lower weld temperature than the steels, I'm not sure what the actual temperature is, but I'd guess +/- 200F lower, say around 1400F - 1600F.

So when we weld a piece of material like meteoritic material, that has nickel running through it we are welding the iron at more than 2500F and the nickel is also going to be at +2500F, however, the melting temperature of nickel is between 1600F & 1700F, so when the weld is taken, that nickel is already well past its melting point.

To take the weld, hammer blows on the surfaces of the material are required, initially only light, but increasing in force.

The colour of the iron when first hit will be close to white and it will be beginning to liquify.

Weihrauch has stated:- "after a longer glow they (the W-patterns) disappear completely."

To my mind it is truly miraculous that any Widmanstatten pattern remained in the material, even before it was hit with a hammer. If, of course, Weihrauch was talking about forge welding, not gas welds, nor electric welds.

To use meteoritic material in a blade it needs to be cleaned, this is achieved by folding and welding the billet of meteoritic material. In my experience it usually takes at least 7 welds before the meteoritic material is clean enough to use. So 7 or more welds, combined with quite heavy forging. Then more welding to attach the meteoritic material to the steel core.

I think I'll continue to back Prof. Piaskowski's opinion.

[Athanase]

I think that the only way to know the presence or not of meteoritic materials in a blade is by a very thorough analysis of the chemical composition (mass spectrometry). The meteorite still contains elements that are very rare on earth (like Iridium for example). The detection of its trace elements much greater proportion than for terrestrial materials could provide evidence.

[Seerp Visser]

The past years i made a study to the use of iron meteorite by making damast steel in general and the forging of iron meteorite in the blade of a kris in particular.
I made many tests on the way i estimate the Empus used in the past and some still do today.
The results of my study are published in a booklet (approx 50 pages, Dutch language) under the name "Het ijzer van de Goden".
It will be published within a month or two in English with the name "Iron of the Gods".

What the Widtmanstatten concerns, to my opinion the Widmanstatten will disappear as soon the iron transfers into a new crystal structure, the austenitic structure, at about 730 degrees C or approx 1350 F.
But i will check that the coming weeks by making some tests.