Titanium in kerises - so what?

[Neo]

Just had a discussion with some friends over the presence of Titanium in old kerises. Well, we don't have much material to study other than the Arumbinang research couple years ago. Obviously the popular perception is that Titanium is a superior metal and hence a keris with Titanium should be better.

Well, we debating about that notion. A friend said that the old keris makers didn't know that the ores they work with already contain Ti - it's just a coincidence. Another argue that the kerises found with titanium are typically the well made ones, so the mpu probably intended to include Ti in their work(of course they don't know Titanium back then, it's basically whatever natural material with Ti as they knew it back then).

I am thinking that unless the Ti is totally melted and therefore alloyed well with the rest of the blade, having Ti in a keris is pretty much useless. If any, it will only make the blade more fragile due to some impurity in the form of huge Ti crystals trapped in iron-based alloy. Titanium in keris will only make the keris better if the mpu could melt it blend it well with the rest of the keris.

What do you guys think?

[A. G. Maisey]

The research results produced by Haryono Arumbinang must be accepted as correct.

Titantium is a very widely distributed material right here on earth, but it is not found as an ore body, as for instance iron, or copper is found, it is found in combination with other substances. It is only in recent times that the processes have been developed to extract titanium from the materials it is found in combination with. Titanium is a product of high technology and the modern age.The old time mpus did not even know of its existence, and its intentional use in keris blades using simple open forge technology was and is a total impossibility.

Arumbinang's analysis identified titanium, most certainly, as it would have identified titanium in many other products from previous times, however, this titanium was not intentionally included, it was coincidental.

What happened was that although Arumbinang understood exactly what his research indicated, the flakey fringe of keris collectors and the even more flakey media did not understand it. They saw "TITANIUM" and they immediately created the myth of the advanced technology of the ancient Javanese mpus forging magical and wondrous blades that contained titanium.

The idiot fringe even took it one step further, they claimed that the existence of titanium was absolute proof that meteorites were used as pamor material!!

TITANIUM!!!!!

A metal that would not even be discovered by those ignorant and benighted bules for another 1000 years!!

We did it first!!!

Our old time mpus discovered titanium!!

No problem that the technology did not exist, our old time mpus compensated for their lack of technology by use of their superior mystical powers.

And on.

And on.

And on.

Until today.

I was in Jawa at the time the news of the discovery broke, and it was absolutely ludicrous the rubbish that was being retailed between keris people, and appearing in the media.

Nobody would listen to logic or reason. They were off on their own little ego trip, and making themselves look like complete idiots at the same time.

A lot of time has passed since Arumbinang's analysis results were published, but this belief in the old time mpus using titanium still persists.

A very excellent keris book has been published in the recent past. Its co-author has delivered a lecture, or speech, which repeated this nonsense. A couple of people in his audience who knew even less than he did, picked up on this and went along to arguably the best real pande keris working today and requested that he make them a keris using titanium as the pamor material. They really took some convincing that this was technologically impossible with open forge technology.

I most sincerely suggest that anybody who still believes that the old time mpus could have intentionally used titanium, or even have known of its existence in other material, should spend a few minutes on the net with Brother Google.

[PenangsangII]

Where I came from, we often refer to "Brother Google" as "Kanjeng Kyai Google" as this fella knows almost everything....

[kulbuntet]

Originally Posted by PenangsangII

Where I came from, we often refer to "Brother Google" as "Kanjeng Kyai Google" as this fella knows almost everything....

Loool, like Sheikh google.

[Neo]

Mr. Maisey, thanks for the answer from metalurgy perspective. As for the research to relate between overall quality and the content of certain elements, you are right that the result won't be significant without having a significant number of high quality samples. Don't know if we can do that, but the thought is really tempting ...

[Neo]

Mr. Maisey: So, keeping an open mind to all possibilities, can we say that kerises that are detected with relatively higher Titanium content are actually inferior in terms of toughness and durability when compared to those with less Titanium? Logically, the more Titanium content we can detect in a keris means the more impurity presents that prevents the blade from having a tougher microcrystaline arrangement.

Here is the thing - one of the friends I discussed with has a spectrometer device in his facility. If he is still in the playful mood he was in during the earlier discussion, we would like to play with the stuff to see the CORRELATION between metal elements and the PERCEIVED physical quality of the keris (garap, besi, etc). It would be fun to revisit the Arumbinang research one more time.

Penangsang 2.0: I have a keris that I baptized as "Kanjeng Kyai Uang Belajar". It can fly across land and ocean riding a small package called TIKI.

[A. G. Maisey]

No, I don't think so. I really doubt that it would make any difference at all, either for or against the quality of the material, because the amounts of titanium involved are so minute, just trace elements really. There are many other factors involved in primitive forge technology that can affect the qualities of the finished product, apart from titanium.Additionally, the range of acceptable quality for intended purpose is so wide with a keris, that there is a huge span of acceptable material.

As for spectrographic analysis, well, it might be an interesting way to pass some time, but the great Polish historical metallurgist Prof. Jerzy Piaskowski spent years and years on analysis of the material used in keris, so a lot of this sort of work has already been done.

As for correlation of garap with material,and visually perceived quality of material, if you have sufficient genuinely old keris of quality to constitute a statistically valid sample, this might be a useful exercise.