What happened with this blade?

[A. G. Maisey]

If this keris was purchased recently in Indonesia, anything is possible.

With these better pics it is obvious that a weld such as this is something that would require the skill of Merlin.

I feel that the dreaded Alteco may be involved here.

Alteco is what is mostly used in Jawa as a super glue.

Alternatively, maybe they've not actually welded, but heated the blade as much as they dare, and then dropped a little bit of molten nickel onto it. I really hate some of the tricks these shysters get up to. If you've got an old blade, respect it, let it keep its integrity and don't screw around with it. Of course, the fault all lays with uneducated collectors:- they want more than is reasonable, so the gentlemen in Jawa will always try to give the buyers what they want. Its the old:- "buyer is always right" thing in action.

After that little tirade, there is another possibility, and it goes like this:- when the blade was originally welded the pamor material was broken, nor in a single paper-thin layer, but in several layers. One of these layers overlapped another and failed to weld --- you cannot weld nickel to nickel, you need the iron in between to act as glue --- this layer that did not stick would now run under one pool of pamor, and its edge would run over the edge of the other pool of pamor. This is a possibility, but then I can see the way that the iron adjacent to the "patch" has little bits of paleness to it, don't know what this is, but it doesn't look right.

I really do not know what has happened here, there are too many possibilities, and I don't like the sound of any of them. Speaking only for myself, I'd move this blade along by any means possible, and be prepared to take a loss on it.