Lovely Old Barung With Twistcore

[Philip]

Originally Posted by Roland_M

Nice blade indeed. But I believe, this is not a twistcore, it is thin layer of twisted metal on each side. This would explain the unusual wild look of the twisted layer. The twisted bar was forged into two thin layers.


Roland

I agree. The pattern on each side does reveal a twisted structure, but to be twist-CORE, this structure would have to go the entire thickness of the blade, with the edges being "stack"-welded to the cutting and dorsal sides. In this case, the core is what protrudes as the cutting- and back-edges and is laminated in sandwich fashion between the twist-pattern layers on each face.

There are Moro keris blades that show all the signs of being a twist-core construction, the format bearing considerable similarity, in principle, to sword-blades of Anglo-Saxon and Nordic Europe during the early Middle Ages.