Titanium Keris

A. G. Maisey · 28th January 2008, 08:11 PM

As Richard has advised, titanium is not rare, but it does not come in nice convenient little lumps. It is really not surprising that titanium was found in the analyses of old Javanese keris that were carried out in Jogja a few years back, however, the conclusions that were drawn from these analyses by people with no knowledge of metallurgy and huge imaginations, were ludicrous.

I suspect that if ever we get an analysis of pamor munggul we will find that it is nickelous material. The little bulb of pamor could have been formed during forging by the nickel melting and running to fill a void in the ferric material.

It is said that pamor munggul is very hard and cannot be easily filed, but I fail to understand how anybody would know this:- pamor munggul adds much value to a keris, who in his right mind is going to try to reduce that value with a file? I suspect we are looking at urban legend here.

28th January 2008, 08:11 PM	#10
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,994	As Richard has advised, titanium is not rare, but it does not come in nice convenient little lumps. It is really not surprising that titanium was found in the analyses of old Javanese keris that were carried out in Jogja a few years back, however, the conclusions that were drawn from these analyses by people with no knowledge of metallurgy and huge imaginations, were ludicrous. I suspect that if ever we get an analysis of pamor munggul we will find that it is nickelous material. The little bulb of pamor could have been formed during forging by the nickel melting and running to fill a void in the ferric material. It is said that pamor munggul is very hard and cannot be easily filed, but I fail to understand how anybody would know this:- pamor munggul adds much value to a keris, who in his right mind is going to try to reduce that value with a file? I suspect we are looking at urban legend here.