Interesting big sized javanese keris

[Ria]

Dear Alan,

I have some info to share.

I referred my pictures below. Here in my place, people liked to name it as tumbuk lada instead or siwar/sewar.

When I ordered a new dress for this siwar from tukang in Terengganu, Malaysia, I have specifically asked for kemuning. He admitted this wood very hard to find and managed to get some of it.

I do not know wether he correct about kemuning, but majority people in my place believed it is kemuning.

I provide a picture of the wood before and after polishing.

Regards,

Ria

[A. G. Maisey]

I thank you for these photos Pak Ria.

All I can say is that both your chatoyant yellow wood, and the chatoyant yellow wood in the other photograph have the precise appearance of akasia.

If you tell me that you have been told by the tukang wrongko that it is kemuning, I believe you.

The only kemuning that I have seen, and that I know was kemuning, has been in old Peninsula and Bugis wrongkos. It has been hard, and the chatoyant grain has had the nature of a sunburst, rather than the consistent fiddleback grain that I can see in the other wrongko and in your scabbard. I have never seen a kemuning wrongko with this fiddleback grain, but I have seen Javanese hilts with a fiddleback grain.

On the other hand, I have seen a lot of wrongkos made from akasia that do have the consistent fiddleback grain that is shown in your scabbard and in the other wrongko.

We're working with photos here, not the real thing, but based upon what I can see in the photos I would without hesitation say that I'm looking at akasia, simply because I have never seen any verifiable kemuning that looks anything like this, but I have seen a great deal of akasia that looks precisely like it.

I have also seen other woods that are close to kemuning in colour, and that have a fiddleback grain, and that have been used in wrongkos, such as paumarfin--- a South American wood that a dealer in Jawa imported a very large quantity of from Sth America about 30 years ago.

But if you tell me that your scabbard is kemuning, I believe you; its just that this is the only piece of kemuning that I've ever seen that looks like this --- except for the wrongko in the previous linked site.

One of the facts of life is that akasia is a wood that has only begun to be used in the recent past. It has no history, and no esoterica attached to it. In fact, although it is sourced from Indonesian trees, I'm not even certain that it is an Indonesian idigenous wood. Its always easier to sell something if that something can be linked to a little bit of tradition. Akasia has no tradition.

EDIT

Above I said

"I have never seen a kemuning wrongko with this fiddleback grain"

This is possibly an incorrect statement.

What is perhaps more correct is:-

I have never seen wood in a wrongko atasan with a fiddleback grain that I knew was definitely kemuning

[David]

In recent years it was discovered that Sushi restaurants were substituting Tilapia for Red Snapper and not saying anything. The Tilapia is cheaper and more available. If some suspicious persons hadn't decided to do DNA testing we might never have known. Who knows, in 30 or 40 years we might all be thinking that Tilapia WAS Red Snapper. This kind of thing happens everywhere with all things.
Of course, as it happens, i prefer Tilapia.

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by Gustav

I just think, we should take earnest what Alan has written about this.

Here an old post about Kemuning in bugis sheath:

I second the opinion from Gustav. Both, Alan as well as Kai Wee will know it better than most of the others.

[A. G. Maisey]

I've been thinking about this discussion on kermuning.

It seems to me that the main reason we're going around in circles on this one is that there is a tendency for people to confuse wood grain and/or colour with variations in wood types.

The chatoyant, fiddle back grain that has been shown by some of us as an example of kemuning can occur in a variety of woods, and the grain itself, and colour, are not indicative of the type of wood we are looking at. To know the type of wood, you need a very great depth of knowledge, probably specialist training over many years, and to have the wood in your hand.

My profession is audit and risk management, but my family background is fine art cabinet making, and I have dabbled in wood work at times, for instance, back in my twenties I had a nice little hobby business going, making custom built rifle stocks.

There are a number of fancy grains that we use in wood work in Australia that are also identifiable as wood grains known in Jawa:-

Fiddle back = nginden
Feather crotch = simbar
Bird's eye = semburatan
Burl = gembol
------ and so on.


Here is a link to a site with a number of examples of fancy grains that are known and used in western cultures;

http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/person...cs/_figure.htm

select a term from the list on the left of the page, and then click on the link to the photo examples.

Most, if not all of the grains shown here are known in Jawa.

However, these grains can occur in a number of different timbers, so the grain by itself is not an identifier of the wood type, and colours of the same wood type can run through a range, so colour by itself is not an indication of the wood type.

With a great deal of knowledge and experience a person can take a piece of wood in hand and possibly name the wood type, if he has experience with that wood, but from photos all we have are colour and grain, so we tend to relate that colour and grain to what we have learnt from physical examples of material.

It is very difficult to be certain about a wood type from a photo, but we can be certain about a wood grain from a photo

[A. G. Maisey]

The following 20 or so images are examples of similar wood grains.

I cannot correctly name all the different types of wood that are shown here. I can name some with absolute certainty, I can guess at others, and there are some that I do not know.

I am inviting everybody to nominate the images which are images of kemuning.

[A. G. Maisey]

A few more.

[A. G. Maisey]

And a few more.

[A. G. Maisey]

The examples of wood that I posted yesterday have been viewed 110 times since they were posted.

It appears that none of these 110 views has been sufficient to permit any of the viewers to identify the examples of kemuning.

Here are the woods that I know with absolute certainty:-

akasia:-

6, 4, 3, 2, 11, 8, 16

pau marfin:-

13, 21

Tasmanian blackwood:-

22

#1 is probably akasia, but I am not certain.

the following numbers I am uncertain of; I can guess that some are kemuning, but I do not know with absolute certainty that this is the case:-

20, 10, 9, 7, 5, 18, 17, 15, 12, 19, 23 & 23.

Note:- I made an error in numbering, there are two examples identified as #23

[Sajen]

Yup, who want to be sure about the sort of wood after this discussion? You show us with conclusive arguments how difficult it is to destine the nature of a wood. On the other hand you also suspect that the shown wrongkos from Bugis and Peninsula are possible kemuning.
Who have read this thread will be in future more distrustful by descriptions from sellers which wood is used by a wrongko/sarung of a keris.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Sajen, that was the point of the exercise.

As we have commented time and time again:-

here, we are looking at images of objects, wood included, not the actual object


it is often very difficult to be too certain about anything.

I do believe some of the Bugis and Peninsula examples are kemuning, but I don't really know, because the kemuning I have seen and handled most of has been only as big as a jejeran, and nearly always stained. It is entirely possible that there are other local woods used in these Bugis and Peninsula examples that I do not know.

[kai]

Hello Alan,

I do believe some of the Bugis and Peninsula examples are kemuning, but I don't really know, because the kemuning I have seen and handled most of has been only as big as a jejeran, and nearly always stained. It is entirely possible that there are other local woods used in these Bugis and Peninsula examples that I do not know.

Another contributing factor is the climate (in addition to the local growing conditions) which can have a pronounced effect on such figured woods: e. g. #9 seems to show the effect of a more pronounced monsoonal climate like in northern Malaya but the results on the wood can be much stronger. Will add pics later.

Regards,
Kai

[A. G. Maisey]

I think I'm missing your point here Kai.

We can find figure such as fiddle back and curly grain of various types in many different trees from the artic circle to the tropics.

One of the major types of curly figure is what we call compression grain, this is where you get figure as the result of constant prevailing winds, or it can occur adjacent to a large branch, where it will often finish up as feather crotch or one of the other crotch variants.

Genetics can also play a role in providing fancy figure, and there also seems to be a strng argument for mineral uptake from the soil having an influence.

What I am saying here is all opinion that I have picked up from being around cabinet makers, stock makers, and musical instrument makers for most of my life. It is if you like, "trade belief".

To the best of my knowledge the academics who study this type of thing have not yet come up with any definite reasons for the formation of fancy figure in wood, about all they seem to be able to say is that there are many reasons for this occurrence of fancy grain, and those reasons are not yet fully understood..

Can you expand on your statement, especially the effect that a monsoonal climate can have in creating a curly grain?

[kai]

Hello Alan,

I wasn't referring to the usually chatoyant effects you've shown examples of but rather to strongly contrasting woods as in the attached pic (courtesy of rsword). Will post some more links later when I have more time. The latter wood types seem to be actively selected for in N Malaya and are supposed to be the result of more pronounced dry seasons (possibly coupled with harsh growing conditions like on windy cliffs).

Regards,
Kai

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks Kai, I see what you're getting at now.

The only theorising that I've come across that relates to colour variations like is that when you get a wide variation in colour in the sap wood what you are looking at is the result of infection or damage to the tree. However, the way in which a log is sawn also has a huge effect on the final material. There is very often a wide colour variation between the sap wood and the heart wood in a tree.

The grain in the material of the example you have shown runs along the width of the wrongko top, from one end to the other. This means that it has been cut from a length of timber that has been sawn from the length of the trunk. A tree grows outwards from its core, so when you have a poor season, or a dry season, or a very good season, you can see this reflected in the growth rings that radiate from the core of the trunk.

Looking at the example that you have posted, Kai, I believe that what we are looking at is the result of the way in which the log was cut. There are several techniques used for cutting a log that will produce different effects in the grain shown in the final plank. The most common technique used to produce fancy grain material is called quarter sawing, a technique that results in the growth rings falling between 80 and 90 degrees to the face of the plank.This is done by first cutting the log into quartersthrough it, and then sawing each of those quarters longitudinally, producing increasingly smaller planks as you move to the outside of the quarter.

If we look at this example, we can see very pale wood at the extreme right, then moving left a darker wood, and at the far left a small touch of pale wood again. The pale wood would be sap wood, and the dark wood would be heart wood. The log that produced the material from which this wrongko was carved was sawn in a way to maximise the colour variation between heart wood and sap wood, and at the same time to maximise the chatoyant effect of the curly grain.

The image of a log cross section might clarify how this can be done.

Then again there are the other factors of genetics and disease.

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by kai

Hello Alan,

I wasn't referring to the usually chatoyant effects you've shown examples of but rather to strongly contrasting woods as in the attached pic (courtesy of rsword). Will post some more links later when I have more time. The latter wood types seem to be actively selected for in N Malaya and are supposed to be the result of more pronounced dry seasons (possibly coupled with harsh growing conditions like on windy cliffs).

Regards,
Kai

Hello Kai,

the wood from the sampir you posted seems to be from ketenga wood which so far I know you only have in Malaysia.

Regards,

Detlef

[Battara]

IN the region there is also the nara tree that has a red core and a brown outer wood. Could other trees in the region also have similar characteristics?

[A. G. Maisey]

Other trees all over the world share these characteristics.

All trees have heart wood (the core) and sap wood (the outer wood).

Almost invariably these materials differ in colour.

I've never seen it, but I have been told that the sap wood of black ebony is in fact white.

[drdavid]

Hi Alan, a very instructive line up. I wonder how many timbers the common name Akasia is given to in Indonesia. I think interesting too to think about what Akasia (botanical classification Acacia auriculiformis) is related to botanically. References regard it as the same species as one of the Australian wattles (which itself has at least 5 common names). The Tasmanian blackwood you showed is Acacia Melanoxylon, another of the Acacia family (of which there are 1200 worldwide). I think it would be extremely difficult to pick many of these species from a piece of wood alone.
drd

[A. G. Maisey]

Only the one, I think, David.

Its a very recent timber, dating from probably only about the late 1970's. At that time it started to be planted all over Jawa to green the environment, then a few people tried the trunk base and root area of the tree for wrongkos, and found that it was most suitable for this use. Its not an expensive wood, but it has much to recommend it as a wrongko wood, and at its best the figure will rival any of the traditional woods.

Actually, a lot of people I know refer to wattles as acacias.

I've been around wood all my life, and when I was a kid I had the opportunity to see some truly exquisite cabinet timbers, both native Australian timbers, and exotics that were often in pieces that my dad had in for repair. In fact, I've still got a 1930's bespoke bedroom suite in Italian burl walnut, which has some of the best figure I've ever seen. I've been up close to the custom gunstock game, the custom knife game, and also to wrongko makers and hilt makers in Jawa. However, with all this experience, I don't consider myself at all competent to identify most timbers just from a picture, especially a picture on a computer screen. A few materials are probably pretty easy, but the vast bulk are not. Even with the wood in your hand it can often be very difficult to name what it is that you're holding.