FORMING HOT METAL WITH BARE HANDS

[A. G. Maisey]

Interesting subject.


I've tried it by wetting my hand and very quickly punching my finger tip into a paper thin strip of red hot iron. You can get an indentation like this. I did it a few times and I burnt myself once. I reckon a smith with hardened hands could probably squeeze a similar paper thin piece of iron between his finger tips.

I have seen a dukun (shaman) kissing the cutting edge of a small red hot pedang , which left half moon marks on the blade edge. I felt at the time I was watching stage magic.

In Jawa there are consistent legends about forging a blade by use of hands alone. I think these are legends, but the legend comes close to reality with the talismanic keris pijit, usually these are keris sombro with paper thin blades and they show indentations where supposedly they have been squeezed and indented by finger pressure. As I just said:- this is possible, but I believe that most of these that I've seen, and I've seen a lot, were indented by a hammer.

These pijit marks do not, in my experience, occur on keris buda or keris majapahit (keris sajen) forms, they occur most times in keris sombro, and very, very occasionally in normal keris.

I cannot recall having seen picit marks in anything other than keris.

An after thought:- nothing to do with pijit marks in keris, but a smith who understands fire control can boil water in a paper bag on top of his forge. The bag is filled with water and allowed to get just sufficiently wet to prevent it from catching fire, by controlling the fire at a constant temperature, the water boils, the bag remains unburnt. Its all about balancing heat against moisture. The same sort of logic applies to wet fingers and hot metal.

[ivoke]

think you should google "Leidenfrost-effect"
it occurs when wet surfaces come in contact with very hot surfaces, if the surface isnt hot enough, you'll burn yourself.

[A. G. Maisey]

Which I did. Once.

Don't know anything about leidenfrost.

Do know a little bit about fire and iron.

Addition:-

Just checked the liedenfrost thing. Looks like that's what was happening. Now I know its name.

[Richard Furrer]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Which I did. Once.

Don't know anything about leidenfrost.

Do know a little bit about fire and iron.

Addition:-

Just checked the liedenfrost thing. Looks like that's what was happening. Now I know its name.

As someone who has unintentionally grabbed,not gently touched nor bumped, but put a hand sqeeze on an orange bar of steel in a very unfocused moment.....I would say that it is all legend. It took me three weeks to heal enough to really use that hand again.
At a good welding heat 1% carbon steel is about as close to dripping liquid as it will get...and still more resistant to our flesh than we are to it.

That is not to say that we can not bend it or twist it, but we can not "forge it"...apply enough pressure to leave an indentation the bar...no way. In blade thicknesses it cannot be done, but I would think that one could ripple a bar of 1/16" thick steel without much issue, but leaving indentations in a 1/8" thick or more bar..no.

I have seen blades which had "lip prints" and "finger prints" in the steel..done with tools not flesh I am sure.


As to the vapor barrier...yes it can help a lot with lessening the severity of casual contact burns, HOWEVER, once you push hard enough to break through the vapor....which one would need to do to forge, well...that is a different story.....ever see meat on a hot grill? That was my hand...made the same sound too.

Ric

[A. G. Maisey]

Richard, I recognise you as an experienced smith, however, I have indented red hot, not orange, iron with the tip of my middle finger.

The material was paper thin, which is the thickness of a sombro blade, paper thin, not one sixteenth, nor anything like it.

I had a tray of sand on the anvil, I kept my right hand in water until the iron was directly over the sand and as close as it could be without touching, then I punched my finger tip into the hot iron as fast as I could. I tried this a few times, and I burnt myself once, the burn was not severe, but that was the last time I tried it.

What I've described can be done, but you need to move very fast.

I understand exactly what you are saying, and I was not forming metal, the metal I hit with my finger tip was paper thin.

As to forming metal with bare hands, my feeling is the same as yours, but I've seen some very strange and totally inexplicable things in Jawa and Bali. Maybe it is a possibility, but not for me, and not for you.

[Richard Furrer]

Alan,
You have messaged me in the past that I would not find what I was looking for should I travel to watch Empu....I think this is just one more technique I will never see.

Ric

[Rick]

Could not this effect be accomplished with a special tool rather than the hand ?

And who could tell le difference ?

[Dominique]

[QUOTE=A. G. Maisey]
In Jawa there are consistent legends about forging a blade by use of hands alone. I think these are legends, but the legend comes close to reality with the talismanic keris pijit, usually these are keris sombro with paper thin blades and they show indentations where supposedly they have been squeezed and indented by finger pressure.

Alan, I am curious to know if you would consider this keris as pijit. The blade is very thin and flexible towards the point. You can see indentations on both sides.

[David]

[QUOTE=Dominique]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Interesting subject.

In Jawa there are consistent legends about forging a blade by use of hands alone. I think these are legends, but the legend comes close to reality with the talismanic keris pijit, usually these are keris sombro with paper thin blades and they show indentations where supposedly they have been squeezed and indented by finger pressure.

Alan, I am curious to know if you would consider this keris as pijit. The blade is very thin and flexible towards the point. You can see indentations on both sides.

Dominique, that is an interesting keris. And i very much like the hilt.
A keris picit (pijit, pecit, whatever spelling ) is so-called based upon what appear to be impressions of finger tip in the blade. You say there are indentations on both sides of this blade, but honestly i cannot see them in these photographs. maybe Alan's eyes are better than mine.
Maybe you could try a different angle for your shot. The high-relief pamor pattern on this blade does not make it easy to assess indentations if they are there.

[Dominique]

I know, it doesn't look like finger tips, but there are slight indentations, the blade is not flat. I would need to make a pic of the blade profile.
I like the hilt too

[A. G. Maisey]

Sorry Dominique, from the pics I cannot tell whether I'm looking at a possible KP or not.

[Dominique]

Difficult to make good picture, but you might see with these pictures that the blade is slightly ondulated.

[Rick]

Can we see the blade photographed edge on to see how it looks with that view?