Titanium Keris

[Richard Furrer]

Originally Posted by Raden Usman Djogja

dear Kerislovers,

My friend commission keris to Mpu Sungkowo (son of Mpu Djeno). Nothing special with his order but the pamor material. He brought plat of pure titanium for pamor material instead of nickel or meteorite.

Till now, there is still a problem in making a "saton" (titanium and iron are blended/forged together. I dont know exactly what the problem is. However, my friend said that the iron has melted far earlier than the titanium.

He asked me to forward what I mentioned above to vikingsword in where keris experts all over the world hanging up. Who knows you have advices how to solve that forging process.

I dont know why my friend wants to use titanium. And I dont know either why Mpu Sungkowo accepted his order. What I know, now, is both of them are in confusion.

warm salam,

OeS

The issue here is choice of materials for the technique involved. Keris pamor is made by "Solid-phase welding" in which the two materials are forced into contact and share electrons and eventually some of the atoms from each material diffuse or move across the weld zone and strengthen the bond. It relies on flux to clean the surface of oxide and prevent new oxide from forming. Titanium has a particularly stable oxide film.

Typically the welding of titanium is done with various modern techniques involving electricity and shielding gases. If the Empu is using traditional techniques he will NEVER be able to bond the Ti/Iron mix...at least not enough of it to make a keris. If he were able to get more than 1/4 of an inch to bond I would be impressed.

I suggest using nickel or nickel bearing steel as it is used for a reason.

Also when titanium and steel is bonded the carbon in the steel will cause major issues with strength in the titanium as the carbon migrates across the interface and contaminates the titanium.

I have welded a bit of titanium, did some last month, but what I used was not traditional in any sense.

Ric Furrer
Sturgeon Bay, WI