Help with Identification please

[David]

Originally Posted by imas560

Can the yarn and rag be reused?
Would dearly like to keep the keris with it's components I received it with as much as possible

While i can understand your desire to preserve all the parts you received with your keris i agree that in this case this material is rubbish.It always seemed to be a matter of respect to the keris to give it some new wrapping when refitting everything after cleaning. Sorta like putting on clean undies after a shower.
But along that same desire to preserve, i had a couple of instances where the wrap was human hair and i have kept the remnants of those wraps in a little box. I know i'm crazy, but it just seemed too personal to part with.

[Jussi M.]

Originally Posted by David

Sorta like putting on clean undies after a shower.

I just turn them around

To get back in topic, I look forward to see how this proceeds.

Thanks for sharing this.

J.

[imas560]

Hello all,
spent a while trying to get an immersion suspension tube setup and finally managed to get 3 drink bottles glued together without leaks. So can now proceed with the degrease stage. I had a look in the local Asian Supermarket for some of the items mentioned (i.e. Axion dishwash liquid) but to no avail.
I used the following advice “I usually do it in the kitchen sink with warm water, dishwash liquid and soft toothbrush, then I rinse off and dry thoroughly before putting into the juice.”
I assembled the following items






I then ran the water and immersed the keris in the soapy warm water.



I then gave the keris a good scrubbing with the toothbrush, there was quite a bit of surface rust on the peksi(?)





I then proceeded to dry the keris with some towel rag





And now it should be ready for step 3.

[imas560]

Hello all,
I have created an immersion suspension tube from 3 clear plastic drink bottles and Selley's All Clear Sealant. The clear plastic tubes will enable me to take pictures showing the in process effect of the juice on the blade.
The tube is sitting in a clear plastic container just in case a leak develops.
The keris fits into the tube and can be covered entirely by juice, I especially wanted the peksi covered as it appeared to have the most rust.
The amount of juice used was around 1.7 litres, the length of the keris is approx 18" (45cm). I noticed after the first couple of hours a kind of settling effect on the juice with the top 3" (7cm) noticeably more transparent.

[Marcokeris]

Imas, if i do like this inside home my wife ask for divorce

[imas560]

Hello Marcokeris,
words have been exchanged and assurances (well...lies) given that "it won't take long"

[Marcokeris]

Originally Posted by imas560

Hello Marcokeris,
words have been exchanged and assurances (well...lies) given that "it won't take long"

[kronckew]

the word 'long' is relative. couple of weeks isn't 'long'.

[Sajen]

Thank's for sharing your work! And good luck for your wedlock!

[imas560]

Thanks
it's the fungus on the pineapple juice I'm looking forward to

[A. G. Maisey]

I strongly recommend that you put the job outside, however it probably won't get too bad, because you're using a tube arrangement, rather than a trough, so there is less area of juice exposed to the air, additionally, the fungus only grows when its warm, and your weather is not real warm at the moment.

[Rick]

Mate, you do not want that solution spilled in the house after about a week .

[Sajen]

When I clean blades I do it in basement.

[imas560]

Left the keris blade in the pineapple juice solution for a couple of days

[imas560]

Then brushed with a toothbrush under warm running water













And then the keris blade was transferred back to the pineapple juice solution

[imas560]

When I put the keris blade back in the juice I poured the juice into another container and then re-poured into the tube to mix the juice solution up. Should I do this?
Any pointers on dealing with the rust in the tungkekan(?) and along the peksi(?)?

[A. G. Maisey]

As to pouring the juice in and out of containers, I feel it is neither positive nor negative. I use wall paper troughs to clean in, and just leave the juice there until the job is done, if the fungus forms on top I just scoop it off and throw it away.

The hard rust in the joint between blade and gonjo will very probably never go, the only truly effective way to fix this is to remove the gonjo, clean the joint area, and reset the gonjo with epoxy resin mixed with iron filings in between blade and gonjo. This has been the preferred method of blade preservation with very old blades since epoxy resin became available, and it prevents further deterioration. I would not suggest that you did this, it is a job for somebody with the necessary skills and experience.

However I do strongly suggest that you use a sharp tool to pick the rust out from between blade and gonjo --- this does not need to be a perfect clean up job, just get the worst of it off the top --- and also all over the blade in the the pits and pockets where it will appear. I use a three sided file ground to a radiused point, a small pocket knife, and a saddlers awl to do this mechanical cleaning. I use a 2.5X machinists loupe during this mechanical cleaning process.

By the look of this blade you will probably get an acceptable result straight from the pineapple juice. After you think that you have it about as clean as you can get it, give it a final soak in the pineapple juice, then just rinse thoroughly and dry thoroughly, spray with WD40 and allow to drain over night. It won't be a perfect stain job, but it will be OK, and it will avoid the necessity for arsenic, and the difficult part of the process.

[imas560]

Took the keris blade from the juice

[imas560]

Scrubbed under running water, the blade pattern (pamor?) really starting to show and under light...so is the rust. I had a go at a small bit of rust and required a bit of work to remove. Will soak and scrub for another couple of days before getting in to the rust removal on the weekend.

[A. G. Maisey]

You do not do the rust picking away in one big slap.

You do it every time you take the blade out of the juice.

Once you remove a speck of rust, it will probably show again several times after you take the blade from the juice, so you clean it off every time you take the blade out of the juice and rinse and brush it. Eventually the rust no longer appears.

The process only takes a few minutes, its no big deal.

[cedric Le Dauphin]

Hi everyone

I know I drop in a little late in the conversation, but it took me a while to through all the posting

Some of the forum mates know that I love keris and that my favourite subject is keris handles.

I don't want to blow on the ashes, but please do not immerge handles in boiling waters. It’s a waste. That is understood and the subject seems to gather everybody approving.

But something aroused in my mind that hasn't been mentioned in this posting.

Alan talked, very well by the way, about the isi, yoni, and digdaya.
Such things, that I believe in, are rarely talk and I understand it.
But nobody ever mention the relation between the handle and the blade. I know that the Malaysians don't give the same importance to the blade and to the handle (except in some rare cases and in the patan influenced area) but I would like to hear of the other keris lovers and pengukir.
Does anybody think that the handle is anything more than just a grip to handle the blade, and is there any opinion on the role of the handle on guarding or protecting the recipient faculty of the keris blade?

Regards, Cedric

[A. G. Maisey]

That is a thoughtful question Cedric, however, I feel that if meaningful discussion is to flow from your question, you need to narrow the focus a little and define the geographic location, and the period, to which you wish the question to apply.

In other words:- where and when?

[PenangsangII]

Dear Cedric,

Actually Malaysians also put same importance to the keris hilts though not as much as the blade. Then again, it all depends on why we collect keris in the first place? If the purpose is "isian", then of course the way the collector's concerned perspective would vary, say compare to those collecting keris for the sake of the love of artistic objects. This also may vary depending on personal experience, gurus (if any) and peers.

Some of the Malaysian keris philosophy was adopted from the Bugis perspective, where not too long ago (even in 20th C), keris handls are attached to the blades permanently using traditional resins (mixture of damar, kemenyan, melati flower and a needle). This mixture has everything to do with esoteric requirement, and handles fixed like this, according to Bugis tradition, are not to be removed if the pamossa (isian?/yoni?/power etc..) is to be retained. Even when the keris is due to cleaning (Muharram /Maulud /Hari Raya Haji), only the blade is to be immersed in the cleaning solution. The hilt (and the watingan) is to be let dry.

As I also collect Bugis and pattani pieces beside Jawanese, I treat them according to the keris's origins... for a Bugis keris, I treat it like a Bugis would, and that also goes to the Pattani and Jawanese pieces.

[cedric Le Dauphin]

Hi everyone

Thanks for the answers

Alan I would suggest first java before second half of the 19th century.

regards

[A. G. Maisey]

Cedric, in his "History of Java", Raffles wrote something to the effect that at the time he was there the place of the keris in Javanese society was similar to the place of the small sword in European society, 50 years earlier. Raffles came to Jawa in 1811 or 1812.

So, if we're talking 50 years earlier, we're talking around 1750, we need to remember that the Court of Mataram moved from Kartasura to Surakarta in 1745. The Kartasura era was a troubled one, the period between the death of Sultan Agung and the establishment of Karatsura was continual turmoil, Sultan Agung's reign was characterised by war and expansion, Mataram itself was established in a fashion not dissimilar to a Mafia takeover, prior to Mataram we had Pajang which again was not really rooted in peaceful legitimacy, before Pajang , Demak which replaced Majapahit following the internal tensions that had weakened the power of this once mighty kingdom. As we all know, Demak was Islamic, and as a part of Islam's gentle insinuation into Javanese society, the keris was adopted as Islam's own.

To attempt to understand the original place of the keris in Javanese society, we need to go back to at least Majapahit, and we need to try to understand the place of the keris as a whole within that society, before we can begin to understand the place of a component part of that keris.

If we consider the hilt of the keris in Islamic Jawa, I would suggest that the hilt has no role other than to complete the dress.

Consider:- the maker of a keris blade can an mpu, in which case he is a cultural descendant of the same common ancestor as the rulers of Jawa, and he has the power to create a symbolically and magically charged cultural artifact; if he is not an mpu, he is at least a pande, or a craftsman.

On the other hand, the maker of a hilt is a tukang, "tukang jejeran", in other words a tradesman. Tradesmen are not engaged in the production of magically, or symbolically charged artifacts, they simply do a job for money.

To find a time in Jawa when the role of the hilt of a keris can be interpreted in terms other than utilitarian, we need to go back a very long way in time, and we need to gain an understanding not only of Javanese society at that time, but of the underlying values of societies within Maritime South East Asia.

Cedric, I could waffle on and provide several thousand words of ideas, hypotheses and unsupported rumours, but I cannot provide a single, solid supportable comment in answer to what I understand the core intent of your question to be. If you do indeed have an intense interest in this question, you may come to some understanding of the matter if you are prepared to immerse yourself in a study of the society of early Jawa, and of other more primitive societies in Maritime SE Asia in more recent times.

I cannot give you the answer you seek.

[Sajen]

In general this will be correct but what is with the so called Gana hilts? I have seen some which are attributed to Java.

In case to Bugis Kerdas hilts I want to remember to this thread: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=10454

Regards,

Detlef

[A. G. Maisey]

Detlef, Cedric asked for clarification of the role of the hilt in respect of Javanese keris, and he nominated the period prior to +/-1850.

Now you ask "--- what is with ---Gana hilts---?"

Why limit the question to only this hilt style?

We can find many hilt forms in the Javanese keris that are continuations of pre-Islamic Javanese traditions, and we can hypothesize in respect of these hilt forms until the cows come home, but to provide a definitive, supportable response to a clear, concise question is a different matter altogether.

If the point of this exercise is to be a parade of all the hypotheses that float around Javanese hilt forms, then let us declare the party open.

If the point of the exercise is to be to provide a solid, supportable response to a very worthwhile question, then perhaps somebody amongst us can provide the answers that I cannot.

[Sajen]

If we consider the hilt of the keris in Islamic Jawa, I would suggest that the hilt has no role other than to complete the dress.

Maybe I have understand something wrong ( please have in mind that english isn't my native language) but in my understanding (what I have learned, read and have been told) have a Gana hilt a other role than only to complete the dress. But I might be wrong by this.

[A. G. Maisey]

Detlef, you have possibly heard and read the same, or similar things to those that I have heard and read. However, I have the character defect that I do not believe everything I read or am told. I want a lot more than somebody's personal, or group, belief that something is so. Most particularly where keris beliefs come into play, I want a lot more than 20th. century Javanese belief, or imaginative hypotheses constructed to suit a personal hobby horse.

All the ideas and stories are interesting, and in the right context can provide the foundations for congenial conversation. But after the conversation is finished, nothing has been substantiated, and all the big questions are still left standing with no supported answers.

There are at least two ways that we can approach the subject that Cedric has raised:- we can pull out all our interesting stories and ideas, or we can attempt to provide solid, supported answers. I've probably heard most of the interesting stories, so these don't hold much interest for me, but I would really appreciate some solid supportable answers, because in spite of a great deal of searching, I have yet to find these answers.

[Sajen]

Understand and taken!