Twistcore Padsumbalin?

[kai]

Hello Ron,

Very nice padsumbalin! If already stained earlier, it is not unusual for the pattern to reestablish itself after gentle cleaning, especially if just a little "dust" of surface rust got removed. Quite common to see with warangan treated pieces when soaked - in this case I'd guess that some former owner used ferric chloride.

This is certainly not twistcore. I do see the limited irregularities which (IMHO) seem to have been introduced inadvertantly during the forging process - maybe Alan can comment on the most probable cause?

The laminations run more or less parallel to the main body of this blade (pamor mlumah in Indonesian) while in twistcore the orientation of the laminations are (basically) vertical to the steel core of a blade (pamor miring).

Twistcore for keris is produced by twisting each half of welded rods (i. e. stacks of contrasting iron alloys) in opposing directions; bent them over making sure to match the pattern/twists and bring the whole into rectangular form again; place one to several (often two) of these bars next to each other (optionally add bar(s) with other pamor, especially with only a single row of twistcore) plus an outer layer of iron for protection); sandwich onto a central piece of steel and add another layer with the same number of bars (inversed direction of twists) to the other side (again plus an outer layer of iron for protection); carefully assemble into a tight package, reweld, and forge into final size/form without distorting the laminations too much (most of the length, width, and thickness is already determined when preparing the package prior to rewelding); remove forge scale and move on to scroll work (thereby exposing the twistcore layer of each side of the blade). There appear to be minor modifications to this advanced forging process but the general principle has been applied by many cultures.

Regards,
Kai