Need Help to Identify Sepuh (Old) / Kamardikan Java Keris

A. G. Maisey · 11th August 2017, 11:34 PM

Johan, if you look at the deep fullers in the blade base, you will also see the core, in cutting the fullers (kruwingan) the maker has cut through the pamor material and exposed the core.

In post#3, third image down, on the left hand side of the blade you will see a very faint lighter line. This can indicate one of two things, the first is that the blade edge was forged down prior to the cold work being done, the second is that we can see a weld joint in the core. Impossible to know which from a photo, this would need examination under magnification.

All of the wider black areas that we can see on the blade are most probably blade core. There is a very, very faint possibility that the inside layer of iron in the pamor was left thicker than the outside layers, and what we can see is not blade core, but rather an attempt to economise on work time and fuel, but this is unlikely.

Think of a pamor blade as a ham on rye sandwich, with the ham sticking out from the bread; cut the bread too thin, and you'll likely see bits of the ham trough the bread.

There is a method of blade construction that was sometimes used in very old blades, Mataram and before, where steel core construction is not used. It is an older method economises on steel by using an overlapping double V construction, similar to that used in Viking swords, where a steel edge is welded into the solid blade core.

11th August 2017, 11:34 PM	#27
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,013	Johan, if you look at the deep fullers in the blade base, you will also see the core, in cutting the fullers (kruwingan) the maker has cut through the pamor material and exposed the core. In post#3, third image down, on the left hand side of the blade you will see a very faint lighter line. This can indicate one of two things, the first is that the blade edge was forged down prior to the cold work being done, the second is that we can see a weld joint in the core. Impossible to know which from a photo, this would need examination under magnification. All of the wider black areas that we can see on the blade are most probably blade core. There is a very, very faint possibility that the inside layer of iron in the pamor was left thicker than the outside layers, and what we can see is not blade core, but rather an attempt to economise on work time and fuel, but this is unlikely. Think of a pamor blade as a ham on rye sandwich, with the ham sticking out from the bread; cut the bread too thin, and you'll likely see bits of the ham trough the bread. There is a method of blade construction that was sometimes used in very old blades, Mataram and before, where steel core construction is not used. It is an older method economises on steel by using an overlapping double V construction, similar to that used in Viking swords, where a steel edge is welded into the solid blade core.