Does cleaning a keris hurt overall value or patina?

[David]

Originally Posted by mandaukudi

real patina you can't clean ? AAHummm?

may I give an example ? our national museum "Bronbeek" where I once visited the depots where the curator showed me a big part of the collection that was cleaned once where very old swords has turned in completely new looking stuff without patina because of the "cleaning" activety of former curators.

It suprised me a little that members give advise to "clean" while they haven't seen the keris yet....

don't unterstand me wrong, dirt is dirt and as David mentioned oil cleaning is ok, but be very carefull with other stuff like the mentioned 0000 steelwool.


first look,than think, ( than sleep a night) than think again, that act.


untouched kerisses are getting so enourmous scarce.....

Arjan

Arjan, of course overly aggressive cleaning can eliminate patina. We must be careful and thoughtful. However i would never encourage someone to leave active rust on a keris blade nor dirt on the blade or dress as these are not patina and can be removed without damaging patina. Of course keris blades for the most part are intended to be maintained and stained to bring out their pamor patterns so i don't think that you can apply the rules of care for, say a mandau to that of a keris. It's apples and oranges really.
As for not having seen the blade yet, this is not so. We all had a chance to look and comment on Dave's new acquisition in this thread:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=13136
And it is really difficult to do much damage with 0000 steel wool. It will not leave scratches on your blade no matter how hard you try, though i suppose that with some effort it might remove the patina from wood.