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Old Today, 03:27 AM   #22
A. G. Maisey
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Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 7,187
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I grew up on hand tools, not electric, & for fitting a blade to a scabbard I prefer a scraper to remove excess material. The method is to smear fine oil onto the gonjo & scrape away the material that the oil leaves a mark on.

In real life, the keris that are worn by people in Bali & Jawa are often less than perfect in their dress, they get a bit knocked around, the wood gets scuffed & bruised, pendoks get dents, ordinary keris often look less than perfect.

A chip such as the one to the buntut of your keris could most certainly be easily repaired, but my choice would be to leave as is and to make it look like old damage.

If I felt compelled to repair that little chip, I would square the irregular surface of the chip to permit a tight, straight-line joint. Then paper off the entire buntut & hit it with black japan spirit based stain. I would use tinted 5 minute Araldite as the adhesive, make the patch oversize reshape and paper back. Araldite can be tinted with artists powder colour. I would not use plastic wood. Ever.
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