SLÉWAH KERIS

[GIO]

864 layers ? Not likely: either 512 or 1024 !

[A. G. Maisey]

Possible, but then anything is possible.

It becomes a bit difficult to estimate notional/nominal layers if we do not know the progression of folds.

[Jean]

Originally Posted by GIO

864 layers ? Not likely: either 512 or 1024 !

May be Pak Ganja meant 8 to 64 which looks more realistic?

[ganjawulung]

How to make 864 layers?

Simply put, the initial stack of iron-pamor-iron-pamor for making a 'gebingan' for keris blade was first made of 32 layers. Heating it and melding it, then hammered to 36 cm in length. Divided by 3, then stacked. (According to “Bab Pandameling Duwung”, divided 6 and then piled five. One for making ganja. But we made the ganja separately, with same material). So here the first melded 96 layers.

The stack of 96 layers was heated and melded again and hammered it up to 36 cm long (we call the process of heating up and then hammering to make it longer, ‘dionjot’), then cut in three more to be stacked the second time. Be 288 layers.

As the previous process, then the stack of 288 layers was heated and melded, hammered up to 36 cm long, then cut three more. So be a stack of 864 layers. Heated and melded again up to 36 cm. Then, a ‘gebingan’ of 864 layers was ready for making a keris ‘kodhokan’.

The 864 layers gebingan was bent in two, melded and hammered until 36 cm and 4 cm in width. Actually, the total layer of keris is 1,728 plus one layer of slorok, be a ‘kodhokan’ of keris with 1729 layers.

* The photo of GBPH Yudaningrat (wears brown jacket), the younger brother of Sultan Hamengku Buwana X of Yogyakarta, visiting and commenting on GuloKlopo process of making keris.

[Jean]

Thank you Pak Ganja. I checked that 864 is a multiple of 2 and 3 (2x2x2x2x2x3x3x3) so feasible, but this is a lot of layers!
Regards

[ganjawulung]

Originally Posted by Jean

Thank you Pak Ganja. I checked that 864 is a multiple of 2 and 3 (2x2x2x2x2x3x3x3) so feasible, but this is a lot of layers!
Regards

Just simply multiple of 3, Jean.....

[Richard Furrer]

Wonderful. Makes me want to go to Indonesia.

Has the "Bab Pandameling Duwung" been published? Do you think this would ever happen?

Yours,
Ric

[Seerp Visser]

The Keris is welded in layers, two sides containing iron(s) with pamor material and in the center a layer of steel (most times).
However to know the number of layers the sides of a Keris contain, multiplying the number of layers before welding, times the number of folds gives an idea but does not give a correct number of layers as result.
The more times the material is folded, the larger the deviaton between the real number of layers and the calculated.

When an Empu, makes a package (stack) of three layers of iron with between them two layers of pamor material and he folds this once, then the new formed bar, after welding, has five layers of iron and four layers of pamor.
The middle layer is a layer of one material, thicker but one layer.
So the total number is nine layers and not ten.

The thickness of the layers will differ more after each weld. The layers on the outside of the stack oxidize a lot. After each weld, the package will lose about five percent of its weight. The inner layers of iron as well as the pamor layers are protected against oxidation (exept from the thin ends facing the outside of the package).

After some welds, the material of the iron layers on the outside has burned away and the pamor comes on the outside of the package. The pamor will also oxidize the next weld.

The photographs of the samples show the effects. The number of layers is 29 instead of a calculated number of fourty. A large difference.

In 1904 Dr. Groneman counted the number of layers of pamor material only, not all the layers. A better way, but not perfect too since some burn away.

In the past the empus were very carefully in welding, because the iron and the pamor was relatively quite expensive.
Modern empu's spill more material as the photograph of a welding stroke of an empu shows.The sparks are fluid metal.

Dr. Groneman describes that Karja di Krama starts with about 2 kg material, pamor and iron. Modern empu's start sometimes with more than 6 kg material.