Why Is It

[ferrylaki]

Thanks for your explanation Alan,
This explain many things,
I always thought that gonjo should be as hard as the blade it self.
I usually thought if gonjo is not hard, then it will be damage easily be the waranga ( on greneng part ) and the air ( corotion).
Its obvious that pamor gonjo cutted from lower part of the kodokan would make the keris making process much longer.

So, I recon that making a few gonjos for stock is might be a good idea.???
is it acceptable?
I am now asking some body to make some new kerises for me. Some body who is totally new in keris making. And making a gonjo would give another 2 days in process. these cost more money of couse.
If only I already has some plain black ( kelengan) gonjos, then the keris making process will cut a few days in advance.make it faster and cheaper , am I right???

FERRY,
JAKARTA, INDONESIA

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

The easy answer is, I reckon, "style".

Somewhere along the line they decided that the correct gonjo for a keris was plain black, no pamor.

However, if we then ask why this style developed, we can perhaps come up with a couple of ideas.

There is the concept that it is a desirable thing to hide the pamor of a blade for reasons of personal protection against misuse. A black gonjo does this nicely.

Then there is the manufacturing problem.

The traditional forge that is used by smiths in Jawa and Bali is just a shallow depression in the ground, with the blast being provided by two rather narrow bambu tubes connected to ububan---upright cylinders with plungers that look like big feather dusters. The plungers are moved up and down, and the blast of air goes through the bambu into the fire. The fire is usually quite shallow by western standards, which means that it is difficult to avoid welding in an oxidising atmosphere, something that is not at all desireable.In fact, it is not easy to coax a welding heat from a fire like this---I've tried, and under the same conditions that old time smiths in Jawa and Bali worked under, I cannot weld.

Old time smiths often used rocks as both heavy hammer and anvil, all the family would be involved in the work, and the strikers were often women.
Taking account of the technical limitations with equipment, it is sometimes a wonder to me that the old time smiths in this part of the world could produce anything at all.

But they did.

However, to produce a forging of pamor material, sufficient to allow a gonjo to be cut from the end of it, before, or even after, the core was inserted, would have been committing to more work than was really necessary, and the necessary work was already stretching the limits of the technology.

To make a separate forging from pamor material for the gonjo would involve more work than to use plain iron.

Think about it:- what is the practical purpose of pamor in a blade?

It is to extend the quantity of inferior material and to provide protection for the steel core or edge ( dependent on method of construction).

The gonjo does not need to be hard, and never is, even where it may be made of hardenable material.

Why waste resources and add to cost, when this is totally unnecessary?

In modern terms, these old time smiths had their accountants do a cost-benefit analysis, and they were advised that the additional price that they could charge the customer for a pamor gonjo did not support the additional cost of its production.

[A. G. Maisey]

No, the gonjo is never heat treated, in fact, I've never seen a blade where the heat treatment had gone past the tip of the sogokan, or where the sogokan would be if there was one. Very often only the tip of a blade---maybe the first couple of inches---is heat treated.In some Surakarta blades from about the mid-1800's on, no heat treatment at all has been done.

If a wrongko is properly made, it will never damage any part of a keris.

No Ferry, you cannot make a stock of gonjos and hope that if you later have need you can just fit them. You could probably get a few oversize forgings made and have them ready if you need to replace a gonjo, but the gonjo must be made for the blade it is going on to.Everything needs to be precisely aligned and fitted tight.In my opinion it is best to make a gonjo as you need it, if you need to replace one, and if you are making a new blade, then of course you will make the gonjo as required. If you've got to make it anyway, does it make any difference if you make it now, or in 12 months time when you need it?

The saving in making a plain black gonjo for a new keris, especially a large blade, comes in not having to weld pamor, and under the old time conditions, making the job easier by not trying to make the pamor forging big enough to cut a gonjo from it.