Thoughts on this Keris

[A. G. Maisey]

I collaborated closely with Prof. Jerzy Piaskowski for a number of years, about 15 years I think.

Prof. Piaskowski was a noted historical metallurgist and he carried out intensive laboratory investigation of keris and the gonjos of keris. His work was purely academic and not at all the sort of thing we would stumble across in material written for weapons collectors.

I discussed with Jerzy this matter of the detection of meteoritic material in keris several times during the time we were assisting one another.

Prof Piaskowski's opinion was that it was not possible to know with any certainty if material that had been through the forge welding process would have had a meteoritic source.

Further, when meteoritic material did become available to the rulers of Central Jawa towards the end of the 18th century, and was eventually found to be able to be forged and used in practical implements, the availability of this material was limited to people who had a close association with the Surakarta Karaton.

However, apart from that, small amounts of meteoritic material did come on to the market in Central Jawa by way of casual finds by people living in the area where the meteor fell; when it fell it broke apart, and small fragments were spread over a wide area.

When meteoritic material did come on to the market it was very expensive, being very expensive it was not the sort of thing that might be trusted to a village smith, it would have been given to maker capable of producing a top quality product.We cannot expect to find meteoritic material in anything other than keris of exceptional quality.

I own two items that are able to be attributed to Empu Jayasukadgo. Both these items are of very high quality, both display the material characteristics that are traditionally associated with meteoritic material.

I recently cleaned, stained and dressed a keris for a gentleman living in the USA. This keris was also attributable to Jayasukadgo, and also had material that had the same characteristics as the items I have just mentioned.

About 25 years ago I was involved in the making of a keris that used meteoritic material in its pamor, the keris was made by a very talented craftsman in Solo, I forged, welded, cleaned the meteoritic pamor material that was used in this keris. The pamor of this keris displays the characteristics traditionally associated with meteoritic pamor.

There has been quite a lot of investigative work done on pamor and on the materials used in keris, a little bit of time asking Dr. Google some well framed questions will produce a lot of information.

[mross]

Alan, thanks for that. I agree that unless you can see the pattern you cannot tell what the material is unless you do a in depth metallurgical analysis. Much like working wootz the pattern can disappear if heated to high. Makes you appreciate how good the ancient smiths where. For those wondering what it looks like here is a blade that appeared in Blade magazine, while not a keris it should give you an idea.

[A. G. Maisey]

Gas forges, compression using presses, electricity, other ways I do not know about.

Now try it with charcoal or coke and a hammer.

[David]

Thanks for digging up those pics from Blade Magazine. Honestly that doesn't really look like a Widmanstätten pattern to me, but i suppose that might possibly be what happens when you hammer a thin layer on and the pattern distorts. I would expect more intersecting lines and angles though. This looks more like a fancy pamor manipulation. If you have any links to the actual article in the magazine i would love to read what they said about this beautiful blade.

[mross]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Gas forges, compression using presses, electricity, other ways I do not know about.

Now try it with charcoal or coke and a hammer.

Amen brother. I love the gas forges no fuss no muss come up to welding Temp fast and can be held steady. But ol-smokey has it's allures as well, however not having to tend the fire constantly and work a bellows is not missed.

David, here is a link to the kids website;
http://www.burlywoodworks.com/
yes, a kid 17 years old.

[David]

Originally Posted by mross

Amen brother. I love the gas forges no fuss no muss come up to welding Temp fast and can be held steady. But ol-smokey has it's allures as well, however not having to tend the fire constantly and work a bellows is not missed.

David, here is a link to the kids website;
http://www.burlywoodworks.com/
yes, a kid 17 years old.

Thanks for the link. Talented kid indeed. However, i don't see anything on his site about that particular push dagger being made with meteoric ore or that it displays a Widmanstätten pattern. I went into his video section and he does show himself making a ring from meteorite, but no forging was involved. I didn't see any video about the making of that push dagger. There are videos about working with damascus steel, but not meteorite.

[A. G. Maisey]

Mr. Ross, gas is indeed very easy to use, making damascus with gas is easier than baking a chocolate cake, but the big thing I don't like about it is that although it is great for welding, it is in my opinion less good for welding and , again for me, close to useless for heat treating.

With coke & charcoal you can control the heat in any part of the blade, so you can bring the edge of a blade to critical, and leave the back relatively soft. Effectively you can apply heat to a piece of work wherever you need it, and at whatever level you need, but with the gas forges I've used this is simply not possible, you get a fast, even, overall heat, no real control at all.

I've never used bellows, even in Jawa I've used electric blowers. A cheap electric blower is a worn out vacuum cleaner on blow cycle. Tending the fire is what makes coke & charcoal so manageable, its talking to you the whole time.

[mross]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Mr. Ross, gas is indeed very easy to use, making damascus with gas is easier than baking a chocolate cake, but the big thing I don't like about it is that although it is great for welding, it is in my opinion less good for welding and , again for me, close to useless for heat treating.

With coke & charcoal you can control the heat in any part of the blade, so you can bring the edge of a blade to critical, and leave the back relatively soft. Effectively you can apply heat to a piece of work wherever you need it, and at whatever level you need, but with the gas forges I've used this is simply not possible, you get a fast, even, overall heat, no real control at all.

I've never used bellows, even in Jawa I've used electric blowers. A cheap electric blower is a worn out vacuum cleaner on blow cycle. Tending the fire is what makes coke & charcoal so manageable, its talking to you the whole time.

Full agreement, I have a Lively forge with the hand crank blower. One of the things I have heard others do but have not tried it as I am more of a hobbyist/deletant is using coal etc, to carburize low carbon material via carbon migration to say make something like wrought iron hardenable. Did not mention that as it is a bit controversial some say yeah and other nay. Many of the smiths I know that started out with fire, grumble a lot about the gas forge but won't go back.

[mross]

here's the page from Blade Magazine October 2020

[Seerp Visser]

The Empu Karja di Kromo forged five Kerisblades in 1904. The forging of these blades is described by Dr. Groneman. His articles are published in the Internationales Archiv fur Ethnographie in 1910 and 1913.
I made a replica of the first blade Karja di Kromo forged. I tried to make the pamor material just as it was executed by the kraton of Surakarta. I used Campo del Cielo meteoriet and adjusted the quantities a bit to approach the properties of the Prambanan meteorite.

From each stage in the forging process I kept material samples.
By modern spectrometric analyzing methods the meteorite could be detected from the beginning of the forging process till the completed blade and during all the stages.

Below a picture with a part of the photo of the original keris published in the IAfE, showing the original pamor of Keris number I, forged by Karja di Krama and below that, the pamor in the replica forged by me. I think I am getting close.

So these days it is possible to trace meteorite in Keris, probably as long as the quantities are not extremely low.
(As example, Djeno Harumbrodjo mentioned, he used one gram of meteorite starting the forging of a Keris (on two kgs or more of iron and steel?).

[David]

Originally Posted by mross

here's the page from Blade Magazine October 2020

Thanks for the article. What there is of it. Frankly it is not at all in depth and everything in it is prefaced with "according to Tristan". Far be it from me to doubt the word of a 17 yr. old boy, but i can't help but be just a little bit suspicious of his claims. That said, it is still beautiful blade, but if that is indeed the original Widmanstätten pattern and he didn't heat it beyond the temperatures that would eliminate such patterns, did he indeed make a structurally sound weapon, or simply a beautiful art object? Did he mix his meteorite with iron and a steel core or is his blade 100% meteorite that was heated, beaten a bit and than shaped? There are no answers to be found in this article unfortunately.
Regardless, my original point was that you will never find such a pattern in an Indonesian keris that could serve as proof of meteoric content. Though, of course, one should never say never when it comes to keris i have learned.