First post from new member...

Rick · 13th November 2006, 03:20 PM

Welcome aboard Vogan.

So many questions and many of them are pretty subjective.

I would think that if you wanted to do any thing more to a hilt than perhaps using a little 0000 steel wool on it the art of French polishing would be a good skill to have.

Switching out pendoks can be problematic sometimes because no two keris scabbards are exactly the same diameter and length; a pendok that fits one keris may have to be trimmed or altered in some way to fit another.

Swapping out handles and mendaks is fine provided that the hilt and mendak are reasonably in the same cultural area as the blade i.e. a Surakarta planar hilt would look kind of strange on a Bali blade and visa versa.

As for re-staining blades; one of our American members has been learning how to do this and makes his own warangan. I suppose that you yourself could also experiment with this process providing you can obtain a quantity of white arsenic trioxide or purchase it in mineral (realgar?) form from ebay.
With a little searching of the forums you will find threads on this subject.
Please remember when doing searches for keris info to look in all the forums as the Warung is a fairly new venture here and older threads on keris will be in the Ethno forum archives.

I hope you find your participation here a most rewarding experience.

Rick

A. G. Maisey · 13th November 2006, 09:07 PM

G`day Vogan.

As Rick has said, all of this is pretty subjective. It depends on so many factors. I'm not going to attempt to give any sort of comprehensive answer, but if we start by looking at the wood parts of a keris, a couple of drops of baby oil , an old toothbrush, and a good hard rub with the palm of your hand, will work wonders.

If you need to do a complete repolish, certainly, french polish is traditional, but it is also time consuming and requires a fair bit of skill. A better solution for an amateur is a commercial gun stock finish, such as the old Birchwood Casey stuff.Or even something like Danish Oil.

In the original cultural context, a fine blade should be accomodated in comparable dress, but a lot of western collectors have the western museum mind set, which is to hang on to old, dirty, damaged parts, because they are "original".If this suits the individual collector---fine. But he's in most cases only kidding himself if he thinks he has "original" dress. Depending on the age of the blade, it could have been changed several times during the life of each of the previous owners. All the new owner has is old dress, not necessarily original dress.If it was junk when it was made, it is still junk now---no matter how old it is.

In the long run, it mostly depends on what makes you happy:- if you want a room full of old keris in "as found" condition, and that makes you happy---go for it!

If you want to do a total restoration on everything you get your hands on, and that makes you happy, then do it. But just try to retain a little bit of integrity, stay away from the estapol. As for Araldite, well, its wonderful stuff, but in my opinion you should have to sit for an examination before you are granted a certificate that allows you to buy it.

With a metal pendok, a lot depends on what the metal is, and what technique has been used to decorate it. Sometimes just a quick rub with a brass polish cloth is all that's needed, sometimes you might have to strip it back to clean metal with a mild acid, then polish. There are probably 50 different ways to go at this, depending on what you want as a final result.

Yeah, blade stain will fade over time, but that is over a very long time for a blade that was stained correctly in the first place, and has been looked after well since. I have blades that I stained 20, 30, 40 years ago, that still look as if they were done yesterday.

Above all:- be sympathetic, and try in so far as possible to maintain cultural integrity; do not do anything that you cannot undo.

13th November 2006, 03:20 PM	#1
Rick Vikingsword Staff Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 6,365	Nothing Is Cut And Dried Welcome aboard Vogan. So many questions and many of them are pretty subjective. I would think that if you wanted to do any thing more to a hilt than perhaps using a little 0000 steel wool on it the art of French polishing would be a good skill to have. Switching out pendoks can be problematic sometimes because no two keris scabbards are exactly the same diameter and length; a pendok that fits one keris may have to be trimmed or altered in some way to fit another. Swapping out handles and mendaks is fine provided that the hilt and mendak are reasonably in the same cultural area as the blade i.e. a Surakarta planar hilt would look kind of strange on a Bali blade and visa versa. As for re-staining blades; one of our American members has been learning how to do this and makes his own warangan. I suppose that you yourself could also experiment with this process providing you can obtain a quantity of white arsenic trioxide or purchase it in mineral (realgar?) form from ebay. With a little searching of the forums you will find threads on this subject. Please remember when doing searches for keris info to look in all the forums as the Warung is a fairly new venture here and older threads on keris will be in the Ethno forum archives. I hope you find your participation here a most rewarding experience. Rick Last edited by Rick; 13th November 2006 at 03:43 PM.

13th November 2006, 09:07 PM	#2
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,056	G`day Vogan. As Rick has said, all of this is pretty subjective. It depends on so many factors. I'm not going to attempt to give any sort of comprehensive answer, but if we start by looking at the wood parts of a keris, a couple of drops of baby oil , an old toothbrush, and a good hard rub with the palm of your hand, will work wonders. If you need to do a complete repolish, certainly, french polish is traditional, but it is also time consuming and requires a fair bit of skill. A better solution for an amateur is a commercial gun stock finish, such as the old Birchwood Casey stuff.Or even something like Danish Oil. In the original cultural context, a fine blade should be accomodated in comparable dress, but a lot of western collectors have the western museum mind set, which is to hang on to old, dirty, damaged parts, because they are "original".If this suits the individual collector---fine. But he's in most cases only kidding himself if he thinks he has "original" dress. Depending on the age of the blade, it could have been changed several times during the life of each of the previous owners. All the new owner has is old dress, not necessarily original dress.If it was junk when it was made, it is still junk now---no matter how old it is. In the long run, it mostly depends on what makes you happy:- if you want a room full of old keris in "as found" condition, and that makes you happy---go for it! If you want to do a total restoration on everything you get your hands on, and that makes you happy, then do it. But just try to retain a little bit of integrity, stay away from the estapol. As for Araldite, well, its wonderful stuff, but in my opinion you should have to sit for an examination before you are granted a certificate that allows you to buy it. With a metal pendok, a lot depends on what the metal is, and what technique has been used to decorate it. Sometimes just a quick rub with a brass polish cloth is all that's needed, sometimes you might have to strip it back to clean metal with a mild acid, then polish. There are probably 50 different ways to go at this, depending on what you want as a final result. Yeah, blade stain will fade over time, but that is over a very long time for a blade that was stained correctly in the first place, and has been looked after well since. I have blades that I stained 20, 30, 40 years ago, that still look as if they were done yesterday. Above all:- be sympathetic, and try in so far as possible to maintain cultural integrity; do not do anything that you cannot undo.