How would you define this kris

lemmythesmith · 19th August 2007, 07:36 PM

I think it probably is the border between hard and soft metal, from what I've read on the forums(and it seems logical) the heat treatment is kept well away from the peksi which would be a weak point if made too hard. That pamor certainly is a nice one-grooves are cut with a file across the blade then the whole blade is flattened to bring the "veins" of metal in the bottom of the grooves to the surface. I'm currently building a patrem at the moment and thats how I got a similar pamor to your blade, the "stripes" look almost 3D in the right light. Cool!!!

simatua · 20th August 2007, 06:25 PM

....Amost 3D ??
....absolute 3D !!

" This 'reflection' pattern, also a by product, precisely follows laddered grooves originally filed across the blade and reforged flat to create a pamor pattern with a series of adjacent concentric ellipses "
source :The world of the Javanese keris / Garret and Bronwen Solyom

The Javanese call this Nginden

* beautiful to look at,... for over and over again; play with the light in the sun or candle
* hard to find

nice
gr
martin

Michel · 20th August 2007, 08:38 PM

Hi Simatua,
Thank you for the reference to The world of the Javanese keris / Garret and Bronwen Solyom. I knew I had seen this pattern somewhere but could not remember where. Now the photo N° 57 , page 20 of the above mentioned book, shows a blade that is slightly blurred and I cannot really say that it is similar to mine. Solyom name it a pamor mlumah. Where from is your name of : Nginden ?
Do you speak bahasa Indonesia. Some Dutch people do.
When looking closely to my blade, I can see that the finger marks where hammered on a very hot blade, the opposite side of each finger marks being leveled on the anvil.

Lemmythesmith,
congratulation if you have forged such a pattern, you must master the heat welding fairly well. I understand the ladder filing, but what is the shape of the ingot and how are the metal layers ?
I have looked in Keris Jawa, Antara mistic dan Nalar (all in Javanese that I cannot understand) but have not found a similar pamor.

Thanks to both of your for your comments
Regards
Michel

A. G. Maisey · 20th August 2007, 11:40 PM

"nginden" means "chatoyant"---like a cat's eye. It looks different depending on the angle of the light---you can see this clearly demonstrated in photo # 55,56.

Yes, Solyom names the pamor in photo #57 as a mlumah pamor, which means it has been constructed with the pamor layers in the same plane as the core, that is, laying down on the core, rather than standing up on the core. Your blade, Michel, has had the basic pamor constructed by a "miring" technique, whereby the pamor layers have been manipulated in the forging process so that they are standing at (more or less) right angles to the core of the blade.

Both the blade shown by Solyom as #57, and your blade have then had the grooves cut in the face of the forging before the forging has been forged out to shape.

Haryono Haryoguritno's book is written in Indonesian, not Javanese. Indonesian is not a particularly difficult language, and dictionaries are easily obtained. You will not be able to read the book just by using a dictionary, but you could understand sufficient to read the photo captions.

PenangsangII · 21st August 2007, 09:56 AM

A nice keris with unique pamor indeed.

I reckon that this keris is called keris Beko by the Peninsular Malaysians and the Southern Thai, since this keris originated from those areas.

Sepukal in Malaysian / Thai context is actually a generic term for straight kerises, and it can be divided into several categories, i.e. the claw like Bugis Sepukal, the slim Pandai Saras Sepukal, the Tok Chu Sepukal, Charita Sepukal, Beko Sepukal etc.

Michel · 21st August 2007, 11:39 AM

Thank you Alan,
For this translation of "nginden" in "chatoyant", definitively a French word that I understand. It is nice to know Indonesian when you collect krisses but my last attempt to learn Bahasa Malaysia (in 1994-1997) had such poor results that I concluded that it was a wasted effort. In my ignorance I thought that Indonesian was so close to Javanese that one could use one for the other and vice versa. I apologies for this error.

If I understand you correctly, the pamor Mlumah is built parallel to the core and the pamor Miring is built perpendicular to the core. The miring technique requires a sizable pile of layers (as wide as the kris blade), sandwiching the core of the blade and that before being filed to give the waving aspect. Difficult to explain but I think that I get it.

Thank you PenangsangII,
for your translation of the word "sepukal" in Malaysia.
A keris "Beko" is new for me. Is it a Malaysian word? and what does it means ? ? What does it relate to ? The shape ?
Kind regards
Michel

Sejr · 21st August 2007, 03:55 PM

You may find a this type of reflection pamor on a kris from Pattani on the Krisdisk chapter10 fig 194 and a kris with a rather similar type of blade with pichit markings in the Krisdisk chapter 8 Fig 118.

Kind regards

Sejr

A. G. Maisey · 21st August 2007, 11:25 PM

Michel, I am remarkably untalented in the area of language. I used to get marks as low as 9---out of 100---in my school French examinations. I would get that 9 for reading because my accent was apparently almost perfect, but all the rest of the language was a mystery to me. Later on I learnt to read French cycling magazines fairly well. What I needed was the motivation. I could see no use for wasting time on learning French, so I never gave it any time---until I decided I wanted to read the cycling magazines.

I had a similar experience when I started to learn Indonesian. I initially went to formal classes, language laboratories, etc, etc, etc. I got absolutely nowhere. So I designed my own program that involved extensive reading and writing in a vocabulary that was somewhat more adult than the brand of Indonesian taught in a classroom situation.This foundation was added to by live conversation when I was in Indonesia.

Believe me, it is not a difficult language to learn to a level where you can more or less understand a book, or carry on basic conversation.If all you need to do is read the captions in your book, you will handle that easily with the assistance of a dictionary.

Yes, your understanding of the difference between pamor mlumah and pamor miring is correct. The work involved in creating any pamor miring is multiples of that needed to create any pamor mlumah. Not only is the time and effort much greater to create pamor miring than it is to create pamor mlumah, but the level of skill required is also much greater.

ganjawulung · 22nd August 2007, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michel

Thank you Alan,
For this translation of "nginden" in "chatoyant", definitively a French word that I understand. It is nice to know Indonesian when you collect krisses but my last attempt to learn Bahasa Malaysia (in 1994-1997) had such poor results that I concluded that it was a wasted effort. In my ignorance I thought that Indonesian was so close to Javanese that one could use one for the other and vice versa. I apologies for this error.

Michel

Bahasa (Indonesian) is close to Malaysian language. One language family, but have some differences in vocabulary, and also different "accent" in expressing the words in oral practice. (In analogy, maybe like the Swedish and Danish language). Many Malaysian words derived from English words, but Indonesian words are more influenced by Dutch words.

Indonesian grammar is quite simple, much more simple than anglo or latin language family. Conjugation, declination like in Latin, or French, Spanish, is also unknown in Indonesian language.

Javanese -- just one of hundreds of local slangs in Indonesia. An it is much more complicated than Indonesian. West Java, speak "sundanese" which is much much diferrent with "javanese" in Central Java. Some Central javanese even don't understand sundanese. So, usually they speak "Indonesian". Indonesian languange, is commonly spoken in the entire of Indonesia...

I hope this tiny information will help you...

Ganjawulung

20th August 2007, 06:25 PM	#2
simatua Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 69	Nginden ....Amost 3D ?? ....absolute 3D !! " This 'reflection' pattern, also a by product, precisely follows laddered grooves originally filed across the blade and reforged flat to create a pamor pattern with a series of adjacent concentric ellipses " source :The world of the Javanese keris / Garret and Bronwen Solyom The Javanese call this Nginden * beautiful to look at,... for over and over again; play with the light in the sun or candle * hard to find nice gr martin

20th August 2007, 08:38 PM	#3
Michel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Switzerland Posts: 139	Nginden Hi Simatua, Thank you for the reference to The world of the Javanese keris / Garret and Bronwen Solyom. I knew I had seen this pattern somewhere but could not remember where. Now the photo N° 57 , page 20 of the above mentioned book, shows a blade that is slightly blurred and I cannot really say that it is similar to mine. Solyom name it a pamor mlumah. Where from is your name of : Nginden ? Do you speak bahasa Indonesia. Some Dutch people do. When looking closely to my blade, I can see that the finger marks where hammered on a very hot blade, the opposite side of each finger marks being leveled on the anvil. Lemmythesmith, congratulation if you have forged such a pattern, you must master the heat welding fairly well. I understand the ladder filing, but what is the shape of the ingot and how are the metal layers ? I have looked in Keris Jawa, Antara mistic dan Nalar (all in Javanese that I cannot understand) but have not found a similar pamor. Thanks to both of your for your comments Regards Michel

21st August 2007, 03:55 PM	#7
Sejr Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 1	Pamor You may find a this type of reflection pamor on a kris from Pattani on the Krisdisk chapter10 fig 194 and a kris with a rather similar type of blade with pichit markings in the Krisdisk chapter 8 Fig 118. Kind regards Sejr

19th August 2007, 07:36 PM	#1
lemmythesmith Member Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 93	I think it probably is the border between hard and soft metal, from what I've read on the forums(and it seems logical) the heat treatment is kept well away from the peksi which would be a weak point if made too hard. That pamor certainly is a nice one-grooves are cut with a file across the blade then the whole blade is flattened to bring the "veins" of metal in the bottom of the grooves to the surface. I'm currently building a patrem at the moment and thats how I got a similar pamor to your blade, the "stripes" look almost 3D in the right light. Cool!!!

20th August 2007, 11:40 PM	#4
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,015	"nginden" means "chatoyant"---like a cat's eye. It looks different depending on the angle of the light---you can see this clearly demonstrated in photo # 55,56. Yes, Solyom names the pamor in photo #57 as a mlumah pamor, which means it has been constructed with the pamor layers in the same plane as the core, that is, laying down on the core, rather than standing up on the core. Your blade, Michel, has had the basic pamor constructed by a "miring" technique, whereby the pamor layers have been manipulated in the forging process so that they are standing at (more or less) right angles to the core of the blade. Both the blade shown by Solyom as #57, and your blade have then had the grooves cut in the face of the forging before the forging has been forged out to shape. Haryono Haryoguritno's book is written in Indonesian, not Javanese. Indonesian is not a particularly difficult language, and dictionaries are easily obtained. You will not be able to read the book just by using a dictionary, but you could understand sufficient to read the photo captions.

21st August 2007, 09:56 AM	#5
PenangsangII Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 401	Sepukal A nice keris with unique pamor indeed. I reckon that this keris is called keris Beko by the Peninsular Malaysians and the Southern Thai, since this keris originated from those areas. Sepukal in Malaysian / Thai context is actually a generic term for straight kerises, and it can be divided into several categories, i.e. the claw like Bugis Sepukal, the slim Pandai Saras Sepukal, the Tok Chu Sepukal, Charita Sepukal, Beko Sepukal etc.

21st August 2007, 11:39 AM	#6
Michel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Switzerland Posts: 139	Thank you Alan, For this translation of "nginden" in "chatoyant", definitively a French word that I understand. It is nice to know Indonesian when you collect krisses but my last attempt to learn Bahasa Malaysia (in 1994-1997) had such poor results that I concluded that it was a wasted effort. In my ignorance I thought that Indonesian was so close to Javanese that one could use one for the other and vice versa. I apologies for this error. If I understand you correctly, the pamor Mlumah is built parallel to the core and the pamor Miring is built perpendicular to the core. The miring technique requires a sizable pile of layers (as wide as the kris blade), sandwiching the core of the blade and that before being filed to give the waving aspect. Difficult to explain but I think that I get it. Thank you PenangsangII, for your translation of the word "sepukal" in Malaysia. A keris "Beko" is new for me. Is it a Malaysian word? and what does it means ? ? What does it relate to ? The shape ? Kind regards Michel

21st August 2007, 11:25 PM	#8
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,015	Michel, I am remarkably untalented in the area of language. I used to get marks as low as 9---out of 100---in my school French examinations. I would get that 9 for reading because my accent was apparently almost perfect, but all the rest of the language was a mystery to me. Later on I learnt to read French cycling magazines fairly well. What I needed was the motivation. I could see no use for wasting time on learning French, so I never gave it any time---until I decided I wanted to read the cycling magazines. I had a similar experience when I started to learn Indonesian. I initially went to formal classes, language laboratories, etc, etc, etc. I got absolutely nowhere. So I designed my own program that involved extensive reading and writing in a vocabulary that was somewhat more adult than the brand of Indonesian taught in a classroom situation.This foundation was added to by live conversation when I was in Indonesia. Believe me, it is not a difficult language to learn to a level where you can more or less understand a book, or carry on basic conversation.If all you need to do is read the captions in your book, you will handle that easily with the assistance of a dictionary. Yes, your understanding of the difference between pamor mlumah and pamor miring is correct. The work involved in creating any pamor miring is multiples of that needed to create any pamor mlumah. Not only is the time and effort much greater to create pamor miring than it is to create pamor mlumah, but the level of skill required is also much greater.