Obsidian tools

[Gilvar]

Here are what some obsidian tools might look like.

http://www.swordandstone.com/knifeimages/stagknifes.jpg

[sjanimal]

Nice pictures, very inspiring.

[Anonymous]

Just to give you an idea of how sharp obsidian really is. I gathered this information from a surgical tools site.


Obsidian is also being used in modern surgery. The edge of the platinum blades currently used are rounded at about 750 diameters. The obsidian blade that fractures to the last molecule is far shaper at 10,000 diameters. Cataract removal and cornea transplants are successfully performed with obsidian tools.

Also....

Obsidian occurs as thick, short flows or domes over volcanic vents. It is usually black in color but occasionally red or brown (if iron-oxide dust is present), clear, or green.

I dont know about the rest of you but I would really like to own my very own clear obsidian sword....or green obsidian earrings...just a thought.

[flurry]

About the sharpness of obsidian, I was looking for some information on obsidian tools and I found a few websites that make claims like this:

Making good use of obsidian's natural razor sharp edges, the Aztecs used it in the creation of their lethal war clubs and 'swords.' Called a macuahuitl, Aztec swords were wooden sticks whose two edges were each lined with five razor-sharp blades of chipped obsidian -- glass, in effect.

Macuahuitl blades were sharp enough to behead a horse with one swing.

:shock:

Behead a horse with one swing?   (This came from here which seems to have a lot of good history and trivia about obsidian.)  

I found that after reading, somewhere else, the similar claim that

Spanish conquistadors learned, to their annoyance, that a single blow from a good Aztec obsidian-edged sword could behead a horse. In modern times, obsidian has even been used for surgical scalpel blades.

(That's from here.)

Just wow.   I didn't know it was that sharp.   Yikes.

[amoeba]

Department of Surgery, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore.

There are several anecdotal clinical articles claiming wound healing and scar superiority using obsidian (volcanic glass) scalpels. In order to determine if skin incisions made with obsidian were superior to those made with standard surgical steel, wound tensile strength, scar width, and histology were assessed in 40 adult male Sprague-Dawley rats. Each rat received two parallel 8-cm dorsal skin incisions, one with an obsidian scalpel and the other with a surgical steel scalpel (no. 15 blade). Data were analyzed by ANOVA. Tensile strength of the two wound types was not different at 7, 14, 21, and 42 days. Scar width, however, was significantly less in the obsidian wounds at 7, 10, and 14 days (p < 0.005). At 21 days, scar width was not different in the two groups. At 42 days, all wounds were barely detectable, thus precluding scar width analysis. A blinded histologic review suggested that obsidian wounds contained fewer inflammatory cells and less granulation tissue at 7 days.