Damascene and Pamor

[A. G. Maisey]

Actually Jason, the words "damascene", "damascus", and "damask" can be very confusing and misleading if we do not use them with care.

The English usage of "damascene" is to refer to a type of fabric with a raised design woven into it, or to a method of ornamenting metal with inlaid gold or silver, or to a watered pattern.

When the word "damascus" is combined with either the word "iron", or "steel", it refers to iron and steel welded together in imitation of Damask Steel.

The first known use of the phrase "damask steel" occurred in 1603 , and in the English Language can refer to either steel manufactured at Damascus---that which we would now probably call wootz--- or to its imitation, created as I mention above.

The word "wootz" first appeared in the English Language at the end of the 18th century, but it is only in very recent times that its use has become widespread, probably because of the rise of the custom knife industry.

Damasteel is actually a tradename for a type of factory produced steel having similar appearance to mechanical damascus steel.

http://www.damasteel.com/index.html

[josh stout]

I have read about how the pamor of a keris is made with folded steel over a core, but to me this seems simply a variety of pattern welding, and one that sounds extremely similar to Chinese sanmai construction. I think pamor is a general word in Bahasa for the patterns in steel as I think it refers to any patterns including those various pedeng type sabers with inserted edges. In that case the "pamor" would refer to patterns that go all the way through the body of a saber, rather than a skin over a core. Here is a modern made central Javanese pedeng with what might be called a twist core Damascus body and an inserted edge of high carbon steel.

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j6...i/27012798.jpg

This one is interesting because the decorative piercing at the base of the blade allows one to see clearly that the edge plate was inserted into the twist core body rather than being forge welded on in a piled construction as is usually assumed for Chinese and Persian twist core pieces. Also, some sort of temper line is visible along the edge-plate at the base of the blade. At the back of the blade, there is no indication that the edge-plate extends all the way through forming a core.
Josh

[A. G. Maisey]

Josh, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

The usual way that we construct a pamor blade is by making the billet of pamor, and then welding it on each side of a piece of steel, effectively making a sandwich of it.

However, there are other methods of construction that we can use, and the pedang you have provided a pic of shows one of these methods.Sometimes a cross section through a blade will show a steel core, sometimes it will not, and the steel will only appear at the cutting edge, or edges. Sometimes there will be no core at all.

Whatever method we may use is really immaterial. The end result is what matters.

Yes, the making of pamor can be considered to be closely allied with what we refer to as "pattern welding".

[BluErf]

I have a specific question - pls see attached pic. How does the empu get the black steel between the silver wengkon and the main silver pamor?

Also, the black steel is of a different tone from the steel at the cutting edge. The black spots in the middle of the pamor are of that different black steel. Why is that so?

[A. G. Maisey]

To be certain about why this occurred it would be necessary to examine the blade, rather than a picture, but the highest probability is that this is evidence of less than careful work.

[BluErf]

Yes, that could be so. This blade was collected in Lombok and attributed to Sumbawa, where kerises are not subject to warangan (hence pamor is not normally shown). Perhaps the smiths there are less careful in this aspect compared to places where warangan is used. Here's the rest of the keris.

[Marcokeris]

Beautiful!