keris jalak with rare pamor

[Atlantia]

Originally Posted by Rick

Presented in honor of its originator .

Hey Rick,

Whats the deal with that really BLACK stain?
I've got a Keris with a really complex pamor that has a similar very black stain.

[A. G. Maisey]

Pamor colour depends on four things:-

1)--- material

2)--- the skill of the person doing the stain

3)--- the materials available to carry out the stain job

4)--- the weather


these four factors provide the answer to every variation noted in the colour of stained blades

[satsujinken]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Pamor colour depends on four things:-

1)--- material

2)--- the skill of the person doing the stain

3)--- the materials available to carry out the stain job

4)--- the weather


these four factors provide the answer to every variation noted in the colour of stained blades

CMIIW, as I am a newbie in this field, but as far as I know, balinese tend to stain their blade blacker than javanese keris ? my friend here named the style of staining of balinese keris as dongsalibing

the final result is the balinese keris is much darker and smoother than its javanese counterparts

I may be wrong, as I never encounter this information on any books, but from several friend of mine, who are in this field for couple of decades

look at the comparison below, keris bali first, keris jawa second

[Atlantia]

Alan, Rick, Satsujinken

Thanks gentlemen, I apprecaite the help. It's always a learning curve for me in the Keris section

[A. G. Maisey]

Donny, the reason that Balinese blades often appear to be darker than Javanese and other blades is because Balinese blades do not have a textured surface.

The factors that I have listed do cover the reasons for blade colour.

Here is a link to a blade that I made some years ago.

http://www.kerisattosanaji.com/PBXIImaisey2.html

It is a Javanese form, but a Balinese finish. If I had done a textured finish to the surface of this blade it would not appear so dark. However, some Javanese blades even with a textured surface can be pretty dark, its all about the factors that I've listed. Use the "INDEX" tab on the linked page and and you can see recent blades made by other craftsmen working in Surakarta 20 years ago:- some are very black, others are not.

One thing is true:- you cannot alter the colour of the material with which a blade is made. Most older blades are simply impossible to get really black. Really old blades often have pamor that provides contrast by use of high phosphorus and low phosphorus irons, and all you ever get there is dark grey and light grey.

Moderators:- my apologies for the linked pages, but I do not have these photos on file any longer, and I'm not going to photograph them again.

[David]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Moderators:- my apologies for the linked pages, but I do not have these photos on file any longer, and I'm not going to photograph them again.

Understood Alan, but now you are required never to take this page down.

[A. G. Maisey]

I probably will take it down as soon as I have time to do better photos --- which will not be some time soon --- I can now produce better images than these ones, but the replacement page will be the same content as the present one.

[satsujinken]

if it's up to me, I will send you invitation to come to Indonesia, grant you honorary citizenship, grant you title "living national treasure" and build you a school solely on the study of tosan aji
and will pay you well to pass on your knowledge ...

sadly it's just a dream ...

i love the way you answered directly using technical terms. Nobody ever taught me the composition of pamor made by low and high phosphorus content in iron ... all I know was pamor is mainly made from nickel, some meteorites and so on

this kind of knowledge must be preserved ... do you ever wrote books on keris ? if so, where can I buy one ?

now i would like to ask ... in ancient times, how did empus selected materials for making keris (considering the shortage of good quality iron back then ? is it like making tamahagane for japanese sword, where only the best materials are used for swords - lesser quality ones going to be housewares / gardening tools.

i have tons of questions and I hope you don't mind sparing some time to share your knowledge

thank you
regards
donny

[David]

Originally Posted by satsujinken

i love the way you answered directly using technical terms. Nobody ever taught me the composition of pamor made by low and high phosphorus content in iron ... all I know was pamor is mainly made from nickel, some meteorites and so on

If you can find the work of Prof. Jerzy Piaskowski of Poland, he did some detailed analysis of old keris blades some time back that details this high and low phosphorous content in iron. The pamor patterns in these old blades did not come from nickel content. Not quite sure where you can get a hold of this research currently, but maybe others can help.

[Rick]

Originally Posted by Atlantia

Hey Rick,

Whats the deal with that really BLACK stain?
I've got a Keris with a really complex pamor that has a similar very black stain.

I think Alan covered it buddy .