Keris Buda

A. G. Maisey · 23rd August 2013, 12:34 AM

Battara, I have never looked at that question.

I have looked very closely and over a very extended period of time at development in Jawa itself, but after the keris left Jawa it seems to have followed independent lines of development in the various places that it entered.

I recall an article of some years past by (I think ) Federico Malibago, that impressed me at the time, and made a lasting impression on me. To my mind that was a well reasoned and logical rationalisation for development of the sword form of the keris.

rasjid · 28th August 2013, 02:30 PM

Hi Alan,

For Keris Buda do you think yours is passing through the hardenning process?
Any idea? Or mostly just made from medium and low carbon steel?
My guess is all low carbon because the steel is not as refined like modern steel?

Jean · 28th August 2013, 07:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rasjid

Hi Alan,

My guess is all low carbon because the steel is not as refined like modern steel?

AFAIK manufacturing low carbon steel is a quite recent process and old steel/iron had a high carbon content and was hard and brittle?

Regards

A. G. Maisey · 28th August 2013, 11:21 PM

Rasjid and Jean.

Iron and steel are both ferric material.

The difference between iron and steel is that pure iron does not contain carbon, steel does contain carbon.

Pure iron, i.e., ferric material that does not contain carbon or other impurities, is very soft, and because it does not contain carbon, it cannot be hardened.

When ferric material contains too much carbon, that very high content of carbon --- say, above 1.2%--- must be reduced to a level that permits the ferric material to be hardened to a degree that is sufficiently hard for work, but not brittle. This cleansing process in South East Asia was carried out by the repeated folding and welding of the ferric material to remove the excess carbon. In Jawa this is known as "washing the iron". In practice, the material is repeatedly folded and welded until sparks do not rise from a billet at weld heat when that billet is struck with a hammer.

For ferric material to become sufficiently hard to be used for tools that are required to hold an edge, and not break because of brittleness, the carbon content should be between +/- .4 % and +/- 1.2% . For example, a very useful modern simple carbon steel is 01 :- oil hardening steel with 1% carbon.
After steel has been hardened by heating to its critical temperature and quenched in the appropriate medium, it is hard, but it is also brittle, and that brittleness needs to be reduced. This is done by heating the steel to a temperature below critical, indicated by a heat produced colour band on the steel and then quenched to hold the steel at the degree of hardness indicated by the colour band.

Although Jawa did and does have sources of iron ore, mostly contained in beach sands, it seems that the iron produced from these sources was of a low quality and that it contained a high percentage of phosphorus, an impurity which causes iron to be very brittle. High phosphorus irons are usually lighter in colour than most other irons.

In Maritime S.E. Asia the Iron Age and the Bronze Age seem to have arrived at approximately the same time and to have progressed together. This very probably occurred because both iron and bronze were introduced to Maritime S.E. Asia by trade originating from other countries, notably China and the Indian Sub-Continent.

In Jawa the sources of iron used were principally imports from China and India in the early years of the first millennium, and later from Europe, China and India after European contact. Thus, although Jawa did have its own iron, it was more practical to use the iron imported from other countries, and this imported iron appears to have been mixed by the forge welding process with the local high phosphorus iron, thus producing mixed iron, which was called "pamor". Use of this mixing technique had two very useful factors, firstly it extended the quantity of the expensive imported iron and secondly it produced a product that had a high degree of resistance to breaking, however, this material was not able to hold a cutting edge for long, so a wafer of steel was inserted into the blade to produce an edge that could be hardened. There were several methods used to insert this wafer of steel.

When iron is produced from iron ore by smelting , the resultant product is called "pig iron", or "cast iron". This is very brittle and contains a number of impurities including carbon. The most primitive form of smelting is by use of a bloomery, which produces a "bloom" of very dirty sponge iron. The pig iron, and the sponge iron is then refined to produce wrought iron. Useable steel can be produced by working bloomery iron or cast iron to a degree sufficient to leave a low carbon content, or by producing carbon free wrought iron and then reintroducing carbon to that wrought iron.

These processes have around for about 4000 years.

So, although the modern, industrialised production of steel with varying degrees of carbon content is a comparatively recent occurrence, mankind has been able to produce iron and steel with varying degrees of carbon content for a very long time indeed.

When steel has been heat treated to make it hard, the quenching process leaves a signature in the material:- the hardened section of the material is darker in colour than the unhardened section.

To address your specific question Rasjid. All three of these blades are iron blades. I think it is possible that at least a part of the edges might have had carbon introduced by the case hardening method, however it is now impossible to know that with any certainty, because case hardening results in only a very shallow penetration of carbon to the iron, and erosion has removed any evidence of this.

rasjid · 29th August 2013, 01:57 AM

Ok noted your explanation. Is your KB in the hand also "feel" heavy as well?
I understand it has been coroded long time and lost alot of its steel, but does it feeling heavy on hand? Because I think your KB is quite thick as well.

I'm trying to make a note for myself here. I have seen a few KBs newly made material is heavy and corrosion can be adjusted for whole blade or certain areas. The hardest part is when people start using very old material to make one as you have mention in the previous post. So how we distinguish?

I'm not playing tangguh game here, but for keris KB can we start by:
1. Look at the whole blade pawakan and imagine in their original form if the whole blade fits and feels right?
2. Corosion on the blade? Questionable?
3. Material used. Sometimes difficult to see texture or maybe heavily corroded with rust so hard to see. Here, maybe the weight can play a part to distinguish the material used?

May be others can add or discuss above points?

Thank you.
Rasjid

A. G. Maisey · 29th August 2013, 02:57 AM

Rasjid, I think your question comes down to one very simple thing:-

How do we know if a KB is genuine or not?

The answer to this question is also very simple;-

Knowledge and experience.

It’s the same as knowing if a particular art work is truly the work of van Gogh, or Rubens, or whoever. An authority on this type of art can write volumes about how to tell the real from the not real, but unless one has a similar level of knowledge and experience as that authority all this written information only tends to confuse.

With a KB, the perceived weight of a blade is no guide.

Pawakan is no guide, because KB's come in a number of forms. I've got 5 or 6 I think, and no two are exactly the same.

The corrosion pattern can be a partial guide, but it is more in the nature of a negative guide, that is, a real KB may have a corrosion pattern that appears to be manufactured, but a fake KB will not have a pattern that appears to be real.

Material can vary a bit, and then there is the fact that KB's were made over a long period of time and in a number of locations, which of course means that the material will vary. It can help if you also have a knowledge of tools made in the KB era. I bought a box of old iron tools once, and I learnt quite a lot from these. They'd all been found in the same place by a farmer. In fact, most KB's and old iron objects are found by farmers. Some old weapons are found as burial goods. There used to be graveyard near Jogja that the local people used as a source of old iron to make tools. The people buried there had had their weapons and tools buried with them.

The most reliable indicator of authenticity is if the balance of opinion of knowledgeable and experienced people comes down on the side of a KB being genuine. For instance, present a blade to, say, 5 recognised experts (ahli keris), do it in private so that opinion is not influenced by the presence of somebody acknowledged as an expert of higher knowledge. If three say genuine, one says not genuine, and one says not sure which, then it has a good likelihood of being the real thing.

Occasionally it may be possible to have knowledge of the person who found it in the first place, and this can be a very valuable endorsement.

The three KB's that I have shown have all been agreed as genuine by a couple of very senior people, and they are genuine in my opinion also.

rasjid · 30th August 2013, 06:30 PM

Thanks Alan for the update.
The Keris below was given to me from my friend who are not interested to keep it anymore due to personal reason. After getting permission from his two uncles and two years waiting period, this one and few keris and others belong to me now.

The physical blade is quite thin compared to Alan's. Is this also one of the transitional type from KB?
Any comments?
Thanks in advance.

30th August 2013, 06:30 PM	#7
rasjid Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Jakarta - Indonesia Posts: 114	Thanks Alan for the update. The Keris below was given to me from my friend who are not interested to keep it anymore due to personal reason. After getting permission from his two uncles and two years waiting period, this one and few keris and others belong to me now. The physical blade is quite thin compared to Alan's. Is this also one of the transitional type from KB? Any comments? Thanks in advance. Attached Images

23rd August 2013, 12:34 AM	#1
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,991	Battara, I have never looked at that question. I have looked very closely and over a very extended period of time at development in Jawa itself, but after the keris left Jawa it seems to have followed independent lines of development in the various places that it entered. I recall an article of some years past by (I think ) Federico Malibago, that impressed me at the time, and made a lasting impression on me. To my mind that was a well reasoned and logical rationalisation for development of the sword form of the keris.

28th August 2013, 02:30 PM	#2
rasjid Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Jakarta - Indonesia Posts: 114	Hi Alan, For Keris Buda do you think yours is passing through the hardenning process? Any idea? Or mostly just made from medium and low carbon steel? My guess is all low carbon because the steel is not as refined like modern steel?

28th August 2013, 11:21 PM	#4
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,991	Rasjid and Jean. Iron and steel are both ferric material. The difference between iron and steel is that pure iron does not contain carbon, steel does contain carbon. Pure iron, i.e., ferric material that does not contain carbon or other impurities, is very soft, and because it does not contain carbon, it cannot be hardened. When ferric material contains too much carbon, that very high content of carbon --- say, above 1.2%--- must be reduced to a level that permits the ferric material to be hardened to a degree that is sufficiently hard for work, but not brittle. This cleansing process in South East Asia was carried out by the repeated folding and welding of the ferric material to remove the excess carbon. In Jawa this is known as "washing the iron". In practice, the material is repeatedly folded and welded until sparks do not rise from a billet at weld heat when that billet is struck with a hammer. For ferric material to become sufficiently hard to be used for tools that are required to hold an edge, and not break because of brittleness, the carbon content should be between +/- .4 % and +/- 1.2% . For example, a very useful modern simple carbon steel is 01 :- oil hardening steel with 1% carbon. After steel has been hardened by heating to its critical temperature and quenched in the appropriate medium, it is hard, but it is also brittle, and that brittleness needs to be reduced. This is done by heating the steel to a temperature below critical, indicated by a heat produced colour band on the steel and then quenched to hold the steel at the degree of hardness indicated by the colour band. Although Jawa did and does have sources of iron ore, mostly contained in beach sands, it seems that the iron produced from these sources was of a low quality and that it contained a high percentage of phosphorus, an impurity which causes iron to be very brittle. High phosphorus irons are usually lighter in colour than most other irons. In Maritime S.E. Asia the Iron Age and the Bronze Age seem to have arrived at approximately the same time and to have progressed together. This very probably occurred because both iron and bronze were introduced to Maritime S.E. Asia by trade originating from other countries, notably China and the Indian Sub-Continent. In Jawa the sources of iron used were principally imports from China and India in the early years of the first millennium, and later from Europe, China and India after European contact. Thus, although Jawa did have its own iron, it was more practical to use the iron imported from other countries, and this imported iron appears to have been mixed by the forge welding process with the local high phosphorus iron, thus producing mixed iron, which was called "pamor". Use of this mixing technique had two very useful factors, firstly it extended the quantity of the expensive imported iron and secondly it produced a product that had a high degree of resistance to breaking, however, this material was not able to hold a cutting edge for long, so a wafer of steel was inserted into the blade to produce an edge that could be hardened. There were several methods used to insert this wafer of steel. When iron is produced from iron ore by smelting , the resultant product is called "pig iron", or "cast iron". This is very brittle and contains a number of impurities including carbon. The most primitive form of smelting is by use of a bloomery, which produces a "bloom" of very dirty sponge iron. The pig iron, and the sponge iron is then refined to produce wrought iron. Useable steel can be produced by working bloomery iron or cast iron to a degree sufficient to leave a low carbon content, or by producing carbon free wrought iron and then reintroducing carbon to that wrought iron. These processes have around for about 4000 years. So, although the modern, industrialised production of steel with varying degrees of carbon content is a comparatively recent occurrence, mankind has been able to produce iron and steel with varying degrees of carbon content for a very long time indeed. When steel has been heat treated to make it hard, the quenching process leaves a signature in the material:- the hardened section of the material is darker in colour than the unhardened section. To address your specific question Rasjid. All three of these blades are iron blades. I think it is possible that at least a part of the edges might have had carbon introduced by the case hardening method, however it is now impossible to know that with any certainty, because case hardening results in only a very shallow penetration of carbon to the iron, and erosion has removed any evidence of this.

29th August 2013, 01:57 AM	#5
rasjid Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Jakarta - Indonesia Posts: 114	Ok noted your explanation. Is your KB in the hand also "feel" heavy as well? I understand it has been coroded long time and lost alot of its steel, but does it feeling heavy on hand? Because I think your KB is quite thick as well. I'm trying to make a note for myself here. I have seen a few KBs newly made material is heavy and corrosion can be adjusted for whole blade or certain areas. The hardest part is when people start using very old material to make one as you have mention in the previous post. So how we distinguish? I'm not playing tangguh game here, but for keris KB can we start by: 1. Look at the whole blade pawakan and imagine in their original form if the whole blade fits and feels right? 2. Corosion on the blade? Questionable? 3. Material used. Sometimes difficult to see texture or maybe heavily corroded with rust so hard to see. Here, maybe the weight can play a part to distinguish the material used? May be others can add or discuss above points? Thank you. Rasjid

29th August 2013, 02:57 AM	#6
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,991	Rasjid, I think your question comes down to one very simple thing:- How do we know if a KB is genuine or not? The answer to this question is also very simple;- Knowledge and experience. It’s the same as knowing if a particular art work is truly the work of van Gogh, or Rubens, or whoever. An authority on this type of art can write volumes about how to tell the real from the not real, but unless one has a similar level of knowledge and experience as that authority all this written information only tends to confuse. With a KB, the perceived weight of a blade is no guide. Pawakan is no guide, because KB's come in a number of forms. I've got 5 or 6 I think, and no two are exactly the same. The corrosion pattern can be a partial guide, but it is more in the nature of a negative guide, that is, a real KB may have a corrosion pattern that appears to be manufactured, but a fake KB will not have a pattern that appears to be real. Material can vary a bit, and then there is the fact that KB's were made over a long period of time and in a number of locations, which of course means that the material will vary. It can help if you also have a knowledge of tools made in the KB era. I bought a box of old iron tools once, and I learnt quite a lot from these. They'd all been found in the same place by a farmer. In fact, most KB's and old iron objects are found by farmers. Some old weapons are found as burial goods. There used to be graveyard near Jogja that the local people used as a source of old iron to make tools. The people buried there had had their weapons and tools buried with them. The most reliable indicator of authenticity is if the balance of opinion of knowledgeable and experienced people comes down on the side of a KB being genuine. For instance, present a blade to, say, 5 recognised experts (ahli keris), do it in private so that opinion is not influenced by the presence of somebody acknowledged as an expert of higher knowledge. If three say genuine, one says not genuine, and one says not sure which, then it has a good likelihood of being the real thing. Occasionally it may be possible to have knowledge of the person who found it in the first place, and this can be a very valuable endorsement. The three KB's that I have shown have all been agreed as genuine by a couple of very senior people, and they are genuine in my opinion also.