Keris in need of TLC

[Jerseyman]

This is a recent acquisition. Keris are not my area of collecting, though I have the inevitable handful of items included as secondary pieces in auction lots, but this one caught my eye.

I'm afraid I only have the poor quality auction photos to share at the moment.

I would of course be interested in any information the knowledgeable might be able to share, but my primary request is for thoughts on how I might sympathetically restore the blade. Normally I would approach it carefully with a little oil and either 0000 steel wool or 800/1000 grit paper, but I suspect that is not the best approach with a pamor blade. Being UK based any products suggested would need to be UK available.

I would be grateful for any knowledge and suggestions shared.

[A. G. Maisey]

Below is something I prepared years ago for people who asked me questions similar to your question.

I used to recommend pineapple juice as the cleaning agent, I no longer do because I can no longer buy pure, natural pineapple juice where I live. I could make my own, but that would cost too much, and ordinary household white vinegar is just as effective.

I actually completed the vinegar cleaning of three pamor pedang blades yesterday, I brought these back from Bali 9 or 10 days ago, and they were in heavily rusted condition, it took 4 days of exactly what is in the below cleaning instructions to bring these blades to a condition where they can be stained.

When your keris is clean it will need to be stained.

Staining a keris blade correctly carries an element of risk & I am not prepared to put instructions for this on a public notice board. If you wish to understand the staining process, PM me.

CLEANING A KERIS BLADE

Actually any mildly acidic agent will do the job. In Jawa the traditional agent is coconut water, but in recent years people have used other acids such as citric, and very dilute sulphuric.

Vinegar works well too.

Remove the hilt & mendak before beginning the process.

Scrub the blade with detergent and a hard toothbrush under warm running water, to get rid of any surface dirt and oil. Lay the blade in a trough and cover with the cleaning agent.

A plastic wall paper hanging trough is good for this. Remove the blade each day and scrub it under running water with a hard tooth brush, to remove the rust that the cleaning agent has freed up.

I usually do this twice a day-morning and evening.

After a few days you will find that most of the rust has washed off, but there will probably be still a few small areas that have little bits of hard rust stuck to them. Carefully chip these pieces of rust off with a sharp tool. A small sharp pocket knife blade, or a saddler's needle works well.

Most blades come clean in under a week, but it could take longer.

My experience with household vinegar is that longer periods in the soak do the blade no harm at all.

When all the rust is off, wash the blade thoroughly, and if you do not intend to stain it, kill residual acid with bi-carbonate of soda. Paint on a slurry, leave for a few minutes, thoroughly rinse off. Pat the blade dry, and then leave in hot sunlight, or use a hairdryer or heat gun to ensure it is totally dry.

This completes the cleaning process.

Storage in a plastic sleeve & use of oil is recommended.

[milandro]

Plenty of information already given.

I would say that it is indeed not recommended to use any abrasives on a finished kris blade.


Mild Acids are all going to do the job.


Etching, is optional, but is not an easy job but... you may certainly try the methods recommended in many threads here. If you have someone whom washes in Warangan over there ( we have a few in the NL) do that.

About preserving in a plastic sleeve with oil, in the NL this is not done, to my knowledge ( and I know quite a few collectors) . I don't think that in a normal British house this would be a requirement unless humidity is very high. Collectors in tropical climates may have different requirements but temperate climates don't, in my experience, require this.


I would add that this is a Maduran blade and sarong and that the hilt is showing in the opposite orientation. Its is normally (or it should be) only friction mounted with some cloth inside you should be able to gently ease it off and then when finished with cleaning put it in the right way.

[A. G. Maisey]

You might be right about the use of plastic sleeves Milandro, but I guess it all comes back to individual standards & objectives.

My own objective in respect of blade preservation is that once I have cleaned and stained a blade I want to put it away for as long as I need or wish, and expect come back to it in 5, ten or twenty years & find a perfectly preserved blade with no corrosion present.

This result can be achieved by use of my recommended procedure.

On the other hand, a blade of ferric material can develop corrosion in a very short period, say 6 months or less, if it is left in contact with wood.

The museums where I have assisted staff have kept keris & other blades in climate controlled rooms, removed from scabbards, and resting on glass. These have been Australian museums.

I have also examined keris and other bladed weapons in European museums, and in the European museums where I have had the opportunity to examine their holdings I have found that the conditions in which their bladed weapons are held are absolutely terrible, no attempt had been made to prevent corrosion, and sometimes keris were so badly corroded that they could not be removed from their scabbards.

There are very good reasons for this failure to conserve & protect public property, but that is another matter.

The simple, inarguable fact is that ferric material left in contact with wood or cloth will rust, if we do not want it to rust we must protect it.

I live in south east Australia, which is a temperate zone, I am 25 metres from a salt water lake, if I do not wish my quite considerable collection of bladed weapons to deteriorate I must protect them, plastic sleeving & oil is a cheap & simple way to do this.

For around 20 years I lived in a different part of Australia that had low humidity, even here I found that continued contact of a steel blade with wood was capable of generating corrosion.

If one has only a few bladed weapons and enjoys handling them continually, then it is probably no big problem to ensure that every item is examined every few weeks, cleaned & returned to display or storage, but if one has several hundred, or perhaps several thousand bladed weapons, this continual examination is not really an option.

As I have said:- it all comes down to one's objectives & expectations.

[JustYS]

Just my 2 cents regarding oil and plastic sleeve

My collection is very small (I can count with my fingers), but I also use oil and plastic sleeve.

I believe oiling keris is not only part of maintenance but also part of tradition.

Moreover I enjoy oiling keris (I do it every month or two), I feel more connection to the keris.

[David]

Originally Posted by JustYS

Just my 2 cents regarding oil and plastic sleeve

My collection is very small (I can count with my fingers), but I also use oil and plastic sleeve.

I believe oiling keris is not only part of maintenance but also part of tradition.

Moreover I enjoy oiling keris (I do it every month or two), I feel more connection to the keris.

I also like to oil my collection regularly, though i should get on a more frequent schedule. But i understand what you mean by it connecting you more to your collection. There is something loving and nurturing in the act. When i do get around to oiling the complete collection (i have a tendency to apply oil when i believe it looks needed whenever i might pick up and individual keris for examination) it also gives me an opportunity to review all of what i have. I generally end up doing this in two separate sessions since my collection is up around 100 these days.
I completely understand Alan's recommendation for plastic sleeves, but have not personally picked up the practice myself. I have been collecting for a few decades at this point and have never had any serious problems with rust accumulation on my blades, first in New York City, then 20 years in Cincinnati and for the last 5 years on the South Shore of Nova Scotia living no more than a mile or so from the Atlantic Ocean.
While i am sure that Alan is correct about plastic sleeves helping to protect the blades i am on a personal mission to reduce plastic in my environment on every level. I suppose the plastic used to wrap a blade gets used for a long time before it ends up in the environment, but that will be the eventual destination for it sooner or later. And while i do not doubt that ferric material left in contact with wood will rust more quickly i just don't like placing unnatural substances around a keris blade. Perhaps i have not had any serious rust problems simply because i do try to oil my entire collection regularly, but like you JustYS, i consider it one of the pleasures of collecting rather than an arduous task.

[milandro]

I oil my krises regularly but I don't keep them in a plastic foil and they don't seem to bother, must be the Dutch wind.

[A. G. Maisey]

Milandro, I'm talking lengthy periods of time, & large numbers of keris & other sharp pointy things that need to be looked after, I'm also talking about somebody --- me --- whose business is the identification of risk and the management of that risk.

If I only had a limited number of keris & etc to take care of, I probably would not do what I need to do for the large numbers of keris I have held during my lifetime.

If we can regularly examine & oil our blades, that is probably sufficient, but not all of us can, and I have stored keris & tombak in extremely adverse conditions for several years using my own controls as recommended, with no adverse effect on the blades, whereas other keris & etc in the same room, at the same time, needed cleaning & staining when I was able to get back to them.

As I have said:- objectives & expectations, and these factors can change from person to person.

[Jerseyman]

Thank you all for the useful responses. Once I have the blade in better condition I shall post more pictures.

Milandro, thank you for the indentification. Regarding the friction mount cloth around the tang (I assume), is that something you would remove before the long treatment with vinegar?

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes.

[milandro]

Originally Posted by Jerseyman

Milandro, thank you for the indentification. Regarding the friction mount cloth around the tang (I assume), is that something you would remove before the long treatment with vinegar?

Certainly, the cloth can be disposed of, it is meant to be replaced. Sometimes some kisses have human hair or animal hair instead of cloth. Some people believe this has some spiritual significance linking the kris to the maker or the the owner or someone related to the owner. You could remove the hair and try to re-use it if this is the case but it is your choice.

[David]

Originally Posted by milandro

Certainly, the cloth can be disposed of, it is meant to be replaced. Sometimes some kisses have human hair or animal hair instead of cloth. Some people believe this has some spiritual significance linking the kris to the maker or the the owner or someone related to the owner. You could remove the hair and try to re-use it if this is the case but it is your choice.

I have encountered a few keris with hair wrapped around the pesi in the past. My own approach in these cases is to replace that hair, though i do always preserve it in a special container. I do believe the purpose of using human hair is indeed an attempt to form a bond between the owner and the keris. But that person is no longer the owner of the keris, i am. So in my view it is not a bond i would wish to keep activated.

[Anthony G.]

Originally Posted by David

I have encountered a few keris with hair wrapped around the pesi in the past. My own approach in these cases is to replace that hair, though i do always preserve it in a special container. I do believe the purpose of using human hair is indeed an attempt to form a bond between the owner and the keris. But that person is no longer the owner of the keris, i am. So in my view it is not a bond i would wish to keep activated.

about using hair around pesi, recently someone tried to sell me an old simple Balinese keris and he told me it was used in war and that the hair of that warrior's wife is used for good luck.

[A. G. Maisey]

I've heard many similar stories Anthony, but I do not know what is actually true.

[David]

I also suspect that there is likely more than one reason why someone would choose to use human hair in this manner, whether their own or the hair of someone related or close to them.