METEORIC PATREM MKII

[lemmythesmith]

Hi everyone!! Here’s the latest offering from my workbench…. Another patrem, this time a gongo iras brodjol, I started this one on 26th January and finished it on 13th May this year. Blade is composed of Odessa, Muonionolusta, Toluca, Taza, Gibeon, Canyon Diablo, Campo Del Cielo, Mundrabilla, Henbury, Sikhote Alin, Brenham and Seymchan meteorites. There are medieval horse and oxen shoes, portions of a Persian matchlock barrel (which had green rust!) Roman iron, part of a medieval axe, a section of a pre 1813 English flintlock barrel, a section of a post 1813 English Flintlock barrel and pieces of flint and percussion lockplates, all told about 27 sources of iron from five continents!
The dress is Solo with a buffalo horn wrongko and ukiran with a silver mendak and brass pendok. Blade is 180mm long (my hand span)

[Raden Usman Djogja]

beautiful patrem

[A. G. Maisey]

Good work Lemmy.

You did the whole thing?

If so, the only weak point I can see from the pics is the hilt. The blade is close to excellent, and the wrongko/pendok looks quite OK.

[David]

Awefully sweet Lemmy!
....and quite a lot of history in the metals used!
I certainly wouldn't mind owning it.

[ferrylaki]

I admire your patrem.

[Alam Shah]

Lemmy,
If you're offering the piece for sale, I would be interested... (hint! hint!).
A beautifully crafted piece, indeed.
Blade-wise, looks more like a Sumatran bahari blade.

[drdavid]

Beautiful work Lemmy, congratulations, love the consistency in the pamor
drd

[lemmythesmith]

Hi all! Thanks for the encouraging responses

Alan-All my own work! Yeah, the hilt is probably the weak point, a little large and the shape ain't quite right, particularly at the base-got a bit carried away with the dremel! Wrongko could do with being a little more angled upwards too.

Alam-You're spot on with the Sumatran influence, Gangawulung posted a really nice patrem a while back which kind of inspired this one!! No plans to offer my "daughter" for marriage.....

Next job (pamor currently in production) something much bigger and Balinese looking....

[Jussi M.]

Originally Posted by lemmythesmith

All my own work!

Congratulations!

Your work looks awesome

Best,

J

[Michel]

Well done Lemmy,
Congratulations!
I understand You made the pendok as well. You really covered quite a bit of ground. with very different technics.
Bravo
Michel

[lemmythesmith]

Hi Michel! How's your latest project going? That pendok really taxed me trying to get it put together without any dents or flat areas-I cheated a little and used much thicker gauge brass than would be usual, it still seemed to take as long as the rough forging of the blade! (about 3 days)

[Michel]

Hi Lemmy,
you really did a nice job. The pendok, even with a thicker gage, is a challenge.
I just do not see how you managed to curl the pendok without letting any traces of your work. I took my old Metalsmith guide book, to try understand how you did this rising. The answer is : a hammer and a solid form against which the metal is bent. OK I would add some practice and a lot of patience. But how to get rid of the hammer strokes marks ? If the gauge is sufficient, may be the marks are not seen and the metal is nevertheless bend ?
Now about forging 27 odd pieces of different metal together is, at least a feat that I cannot realize. It looks very homogeneously done and gave your patrem a nice pamor which is , I guess, not planned. It just happened.
It is a ganjo iras, but you have marked the line of the ganjo. Is it the photo or is it the reality that the ganjo is widening downwards instead of the traditional way upwards ?
Is the ukiran in buffalo horn as well ? How did you find black buffalo horn in UK ?
Is the wronko made of two parts or did you manage to find a big piece of black buffalo horn ?
Many questions, Lemmy, just to let you know that I fully appreciate the work done. Congratulation
Regards
Michel

[A. G. Maisey]

Lemmy, a pendok is made on a mandrel, these are usually of cast bronze and are collectibles in their own right.The brass or other material is formed around the mandrel and silver soldered either along one side, or in the middle at the front, where the joint will be hidden by the ornamentation. A small cap is silver soldered onto the tip. The craftsmen can get the surface quite smooth straight off the mandrel, but excess dents are smoothed out with a file and wet and dry paper. Silver pendoks begin as little grains of silver that is melted and cast into a pig, this is then beaten out by hand into a fan shaped sheet, the edges where the joint will be made are left a little thicker than the body of the sheet, a little thicker means, on average, no more than about ten strikes less with the hammer. It takes about 3 days to make the sheet before the pendok itself begins to be made. A trade quality brass pendok can be made and decorated in about a day.As quality rises, so does the time taken to make the pendok.

Michel, the line of separation between blade body and gonjo varies according to tangguh, in fact, Lemmy's line of separation is quite similar to the angle seen in a Javanese blade of Tuban Mataram classification.

[lemmythesmith]

Hi Michel, I made the pendok in two pieces-the join is made in the same plane as the edge of the blade. I made a former to bend the brass over which you can clamp the metal to with “G” clamps and then tap it into shape. You can use a hardwood mallet to do this, very few hammermarks. The pendok bottom can be tapped to shape over the ball pein of a small hammer. The trick to working brass/copper is to keep the metal as soft as possible by annealing (heat to red hot and quench in water) the two pieces were then filed and sanded so that there was little or no daylight visible when put together, tied with wire, fluxed and soldered with silver solder.
Welding the multiple pieces of iron together was done in several stages, the gun barrels were filled with other irons and flattened and welded, other pieces were made into “tubes” and again filled and welded. The same thing was done with the meteorites, using the Campo Del Cielo as the tube (it’s the cheapest!!) Alternate six iron with five meteoric bars and away you go!!
The ganga widens away from the gandik, the line I engraved forms a right angle with the pesi.
Both wrongko and ukiran are buffalo horn, wrongko is in one piece but was cut out of the horn along it’s length so there are a few lighter colours on the ends from the young horn in the middle. I’ll pm you a link to the website, the horn is very reasonable and it’s nice to work-don’t get it too hot ‘cos it burns!! (and stinks)
Hi Alan-I made the pendok in question before I learnt of the method of soldering it together at the front! Might be a little easier-only one joint instead of two and less chance of any movement whilst soldering. Tuban was the tangguhh I was attempting to imitate with the gongo style, so maybe I got close if it’s recognisable as Tuban!

[Rick]

Really, really nice work Lemmy .
I'm honored to have seen it .

[A. G. Maisey]

Tuban gonjos have a rather rounded sirah cecak, and the sides of the gonjo after the pesi run straight, without a curve (sebit ron), the buntut urang gives the impression of having been cut off short, so it does really come to a sharp point. This is looking down onto the top of the gonjo.

A Tuban Mataram gonjo is wider at the wadidang---the curved part of the blade opposite the gandik---than at the gandik end, giving an impression of declining towards the point. This is what your gonjo looks like in the image I can see. It might be different if the pic was taken at precisely 90 degrees.

The body of a Tuban blade is rather ovoid.

Your blade looks a bit Tubanish, but the blumbangan is too long for Tuban.

In any case, from what I can see in the pics, its a real good job, especially for somebody who has never been taught the rules of laying out a blade. Real good.

[Jussi M.]

I must bump this thread as this keris is so beautiful!

I really like the sorsoran area and the overall look

Best,

J

[lemmythesmith]

Hi Jussi, just remembered I had taken some "in-work" photos of this patrem-usually I get caught up in the making and forget. Hope these are of interest!