Quote:
I have a trick to check if it's really separate gangya...I aim a heat gun around 4 inches above the line. After around 15 seconds at 400 Celsius setting, the galgal should start to melt, and if it's a 2-part kris, you'll see a telltale sign from the line. Either liquefied black ooze, or in other cases smoke (for those that only had minimal adhesive placed).
There's always the risk of melting the adhesive at the hilt with this tactic, that's why I keep it at 15 seconds tops (usually it takes 30-70 seconds for the hilt's adhesive to wear off in my experience).
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Ray raises a really interesting point here though: Most Moro kris - even those with a near perfect fit that hardly leaves any visible line - do seem to have been additionally secured by galgal (natural resin mix). This is not traditionally done in any Indonesian keris culture that I'm aware of - not sure about Malay keris sundang though?
In worn, old blades, resin and nowadays often epoxy have been utilized to fill gaps that developed by material loss and can't be readily improved during blade maintenance/restoration.
Regards,
Kai
1st February 2023, 10:14 PM
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