Thanks Alan,
Very grateful for your thoughts as always. Noted re cleaning well before staining. The stuff that remains is a very hard encrustation. I'm soaking the blade in mineral oil in the hope it will soften this enough to be scraped off. I don't have any wd40 at hand but will get some if the oil fails. The keris aesthetic in terms of form feels very harmonious to me for want of a better term. It has an elegant grace to the proportions in its simple ordinariness and I cannot identify any areas of harshness in this regard. Please do let me know if you see otherwise. I am perfectly content with negative views. It's nothing personal to me and aids learning about assessing keris.
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