Not all realgar is equal, so the quantity required depends on the realgar, as does the result.

reviving this question

Rice water should work, in itself, not because it has starch (which certainly has) but because it contains Arsenic.

but i see other people in this thread have commented on the low amount of arsenic in rice.

Scroll down to page #19

https://aiccm.org.au/wp-content/uplo...June2007_0.pdf

There's trace amounts of arsenic in all kinds of foods, though rice has a higher amount (within the confines of safe).

Maybe the combination of sulfur and some arsenic is what does it, with sulfur acting like a kind of multiplier which allows for even small concentrations of arsenic to be effective. But this is a wild guess.

If I have some time I'd be interested to try adding some sulfur in with some ineffective realgar I bought off the internet and see if it yields a better result compared to just realgar alone, using the brush stain method.

this seems to be a possibility, along with light and temperature being the activator of the process.

There is a lot of empiricism involved in this and very little science. The person who washes my krises all of a sudden went through a phase when the warangan no longer responded en was ineffective. Now he says everything is back to normal.

I don’t think he knows why.

If rice water with minute amounts of arsenic combined to sulphur produces modest amounts of arsenic sulfide and these stain the blade even in modest amounts that may very well be the reason why the salt-sulphur method works

I was told by a friend who said that temperature of the surrounding during the time of 'washing' plays a role/part.

As stated by Alan above, not all realgar is equal. So if you guy uses realgar as his source for arsenic it is quite possible he just obtained an ineffective batch. In it's naturally sourced form there is just no consistency in strength. That is why it is great if you can get a hold of the lab quality arsenic trioxide. It will always be the same strength each and every time.

from another thread

Yeah, i noted Bob's question at the time, but don't really know anything about antimony trioxide. Apparently no one else does either as no one responded to his query.
As far as i can tell it has one great advantage over arsenic trioxide in that i believe it can be purchased by the average citizen, but the question of whether or not it works remains to be seen. It does seem to be much cheaper (and more available) than As2O3, so maybe someone here might want to do some experimentation. :)

I have cleaned rusty and heavily patinated blades ( NOT krises!) with “ Renaissance Metal de-corroder”. On top of efficacy, there is no need to use gloves.
Cover the blade generously with the gel, using reasonably narrow brush, wrap in plastic ( I used Saran Wrap) leave for 24-48 hours, unwrap, wash the gel off under faucet, dry and Â…thatÂ’s all. Rust goes away, some patina stays. Then , if satisfied, oil. I use melted Renaissance wax: when semiliquid, it gets into all scratches and crevices. If not, I would guess needs repeating or polishing.

I like mine with some patina ( kisses of time), so never had to go beyond the first step.

I have no doubt this is an effective way to clean rust Ariel. However, this current discussion is regarding the STAINING process for keris, either with warangan or some other process that will darken the iron and raise the pamor pattern, not how to remove rust. The rust removal set for keris would precede the staining process. ;)