Warangan treatment of an old Javanese blade?

[kai]

Dear Jean,

I already showed this strong blade attributed to Blambangan or Banten and estimated from 17th century or possibly earlier (end of Majapahit period or soon after). It is very similar to the blades shown in the Krisdisk from the late K.S. Jensen, for instance on figure 77, page 30 of the North-East Java chapter. Unfortunately the blade was shortened at the tip for any reason and the last 2 or 4 waves are missing.

Say, has it been possible to smooth out the tip a bit?

The blade surface is very smooth and shiny, and it shows traces of a refined pamor pattern. I never saw any blade in this category after warangan treatment as all the known specimens are in European museums and the curators won't apparently consider to have them treated?

Musea are really obsessed with preservation. You'll have a really tough time to even have them considering any treatments that bear the slightest risk of corrosion/etc. much less experimental treatments! I also believe there is no certified museum conservator competent in doing warangan either.

On the pro side, this is the reason why we have some of these early collected blades surviving almost untouched; on the con side, this also is the reason why blades in some collections rust away rather than being rescued in time...

So I have decided that I should do it for the benefit of the kris people even if it would reduce the blade value, what do you think and which result would you expect?

Thanks a lot for your efforts - I am certainly very eager to see the results!

We can already see traces of a nicely controlled and fairly dense pamor mlumah of the wos wutah type on both sides. Thus, I don't expect any miracles but guess that we'll see a bold contrast. I'm looking forward to the great opportunity to study the pamor in detail - please post a lot of close-ups!

BTW, I don't think the warangan treatment (if competently done by the paste method rather than soaking) will reduce the value of this blade. I would not dare to ship such a piece to Indonesia though...

Regards,
Kai