Planning to make a wrongko

[Johan van Zyl]

Hi Keris friends! It has been some time since I last had the honour of learning from you all in this forum, concerning my two kerisses. I hope you are all still well. I myself have been quite busy, and I am happy to report that I have just finished an article on my Java keris, this time to submit to the quarterly newsletter of my firearms and edged weapons collector's society. This time I did it in my home language, Afrikaans, and that is why I cannot share it with you - although, if one of you can manage the Afrikaans, please request a copy if you want. I would be very willing to have a knowledgeable person scrutinise it! (There's no keris boffin where I live!)

You might recall that I reported that the scabbard of my second keris (the Bugis) was incomplete. I actually only have the original 1850's centre part. I am planning to make the wrongko myself, and I will have to make the buntut as well. There's no other way open for me, because I don't think I will ever, in this country, be able to get hold of original (spare) parts for a Bugis scabbard.
I don't have modern specialist tools for the job, but then, the empu's didn't have specialist tools either! I might just be able to do the job tolerably well. I plan to use four layers of fine quality wood for the wrongko. One of the reasons for this is that it is never my purpose to have the wrongko pose as a genuine part, when viewed by persons without the knowledge that I had made it. The lamination will indicate that it is a recent home-built part, and it might also be a reflection of the laminated nature of the blade that it protects. Part of my plan is that I do not in any way alter the original centre piece. I want to attach the new wrongko and buntut in such a way that the centre piece is unharmed. I have already drawn up a pattern (template) of a typical Bugis scabbard outline with its wrongko.
Please be so kind as to indicate whether you support my plan, and offer me such advice that I might need for the job at hand. I can hardly wait to get started.
Regards, Johan

[Johan van Zyl]

Not receiving a single reply to my request for guidance is a bit of a disappointment, but I am still confident this website is the best place to get keris advice. (I do admit I had the fleeting suspicion that no-one is answering because the notion of a collector planning to make a scabbard himself is to venture into some keris no-go area...! Now I'm sure there's no such problem.)

I am struggling with the first steps in making my Bugis Riau keris scabbard. I have had second thoughts about using the existing antique gandar. It will be easier to fit a new home-made gandar to the home-made wrongko. Perhaps you will agree that a totally home-made wrongko, gandar and buntut is better than to try to incorporate an antique gandar into a home-made scabbard?
At this stage the wrongko is roughly cut out to shape, and the opening has been sculpted to accept the blade as perfectly as I can make it.

I have some questions, if you all will be so kind as to offer advice:
1) I have pictures of a Bugis keris scabbard, that I have used to guide me, but the finer details are not very clear. How do I engrave the wrongko? The only real feature that I see is the groove that runs up each side just off- centre. Besides those grooves, are the remainder of the sides quite flat?
2) I see most Bugis buntuts are shaped like an upside-down little hat with a rim. Will it be correct if I do the new one like that also? Or may I leave out the "rim"?
3) Lastly, do I go for woods with contrasting colour, or will it be more correct to use one kind of dark wood throughout? (The nearly completed wrongko is a dark mahogany.)
I am looking forward to hearing your kind advice! Thank you.

[A. G. Maisey]

Johan, the reason nobody has made comment might be because nobody has anything useful to say.

I have made wrongkos, both gambar (top part) and gandar (long bottom part). I did this 50 or so years ago, my products were near enough to the real thing, and probably could not be picked from a job that had been done by a Javanese or Malay maker. However, I always had genuine wrongkos to copy, and I have had wood carving skills from a very young age. For a long time I made rifle stocks, both for myself, and to order.

Tools are not really any sort of problem, conventional chisels, small sharp knives, various scrapers --- usually purpose made from thin steel cut to shape --- sand paper, You cannot make a gandar without a joint unless you have the specialist tool for this, called a segrek, and there is another specialist tool that is like a curved arrow-head sharpened on the edges that is used inside the mouth of the gambar. However, for the 'arrow head' tool you can improvise with chisels, and for the gandar you simply make it in two halves and glue together.

I personally don't like the lamination idea. To my mind it is an insult to the keris itself ( the keris is really only the blade, all dress can be regarded in much the same way as a man's clothes), non-traditional and garish. I do understand your reasoning for using laminated material, but again, from my perspective this line of reasoning is totally irrelevant. If your finished product is good it will enhance the keris, if it is not good it will be replaced at some time in the future. Whether it was made in South Africa or in Jawa or wherever doesn't really matter. My opinion only, and may not be the opinion of some other western based collectors.

You need to make the wrongko so that the pesi is centered above the middle of the gandar. That is ideal, but even wrongkos made in country of origin frequently do not achieve this.

I do not understand what you mean by "engrave the wrongko".

The sides of the Bugis wrongkos that I have seen usually have a very gentle concave surface from the vertical groove towards the back, the surface of the wrongko in front of the groove is curved to blend into the rounded front. The groove itself seems to echo the position of the line of the back of the gandar on a lot of wrongkos.

I'm not particularly interested in Bugis keris, and there are a lot of people who are more familiar than I am with the details of Bugis keris dress, but what I can say is this:- I have a number of Bugis keris and the buntuts all vary a bit. I doubt very much that there is a universal standard for the buntut on a Bugis wrongko,if you have an example, copy it. The problem I used to find with buntuts was getting a neat joint, a butt joint is useless, you need to make a tongue on the end of the gandar and inlet it into the buntut, bit like a mortice & tenon joint but ovoid.

But if you have a usable gandar why not use it? I would.

The better Bugis wrongkos normally use a middling hard wood with strong chatoyancy. You probably will not be able to get anything like this, and for a beginning carver, soft wood is a lot easier to handle than hard wood. Most mahoganies carve well, stay with what you have already started.

[David]

I cannot disagree with anything Alan has said here and agree that people probably had not responded to you since there wasn't much they felt the could say.
I will say that illustrations would be very helpful to instigate discussion here, either with photographs of sarungs you are thinking of emulating or drawings or initial photographs of the sheath you are actually creating.
The stem of the sarung that came with this keris (that you show in another thread) is fairly useless and not of any particular value as is, so i agree with Alan that you might as well make use of it when constructing your new sheath.
I would suggest that you spend quite a lot of time looking at photos from different angles on Bugis style sheaths. This is especially important if you do not have an example in hand if you would like to get the porportions and nuances as close to acceptable as possible. Remember that the Bugis are not limited to one small area of Indonesia and their sheath styles do have subtle differences as you move from one area to another.
If you start posting images of your project i would image you will get more feedback as you progress.

[A. G. Maisey]

Johan, I just had a look at the gandar that David mentioned.

It appears to have lost the tongues at the top for attachment to the gambar.

To fix this problem you make a couple tongues out of bambu , inlet the inside of the gandar and glue the new tongues in with 5 minute Araldite. You use bambu because you can make the tongues as thin as you need and there is still strength in the material. Don't forget to score the inletting and the tongue to improve adherence of glue.

On this old gandar it is obvious that the buntut was not attached by use of a tenon on the end of the gandar, but I believe you will find a mortice where a tenon from the buntut fitted into the gandar.

If you have acacia woods available in South Africa, you might find that you can match colour and grain approximately with that material. If not, don't worry about it, finish the one you've started on.

[Jean]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

The better Bugis wrongkos normally use a middling hard wood with strong chatoyancy. You probably will not be able to get anything like this, and for a beginning carver, soft wood is a lot easier to handle than hard wood. Most mahoganies carve well, stay with what you have already started.

To me a good Bugis wrongko should have the gambar made from kemuning and the gandar from angsana like this specimen.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Jean true, but you are a connoisseur, our friend Johan is a beginning wood carver with no experience of keris, apart from which, I will stand naked on the Town Hall Steps playing a trumpet if he can source quality exotic woods such as kemuning and angsana in the location where he lives.

At this point I would most gently suggest that whatever he thinks is OK is what he should use.

I can tell you from long, hard experience that working with woods such as the ones in your presented example is not something for beginners, woods like this require a lot of skill and a touch of magic to get to required form and finish.

[Johan van Zyl]

I have read everything you all have written here, with great appreciation. Your comments deserve more attention than I can give it with one reading, so I will ruminate on them so as to be able to further decide on the steps to take in my woodworking project. Yes, Alan, my term "engrave" was very poorly chosen; I should have written "shape" or "sculpt" or better still, "carve".

I have also mistakenly used the word wrongko for the top part of the scabbard. Of course, the entire scabbard is warangka = wrangka = wrongko. I note that Alan uses "gambar" for the top part. This points to another area where I might brush up on my sometimes faulty terminology. Dredging up my voluminous keris notes, I see that I have "gambar" as a Javanese word as well as an Indonesian word, meaning picture or illustration.

Some writers equate the Malayan "sampir" with "wrangka". If by this, reference is made to the boat which the top part of the scabbard is supposed to represent, then this might contribute to misunderstanding. Popular books on the keris seem not to use "gambar" often, but if this is the strictly correct usage for the top part, then that is what I also want to use.

Concerning the boat representation, some writers compare the gambar with the traditional Pattani fishing boat of old, others just call it Chinese. And others simply say it points to the SEA communities as a seafaring people.

Sometimes I find it hard to put my keris notes down...