Obsidian scalpel vs steel skin#

Obsidian is basically naturally occurring glass and a blade made from it has all the same benefits and liabilities of a knife made of glass. Thus, it is more economically sound and wise to use stainless steel in place of obsidian when mass producing knives.No empirical data, but I'll stick with steel. While they are sharp, obsidian knives cannot hold up to the daily usage that stainless steel knives are subjected to. However, there is a trade-off between sharpness and toughness when making knives. These knives can be as much as 300-500 times sharper than the sharpest stainless steel knife that you know, telling you how well made they come naturally. In a nutshell, obsidian knives are one of the sharpest, if not the sharpest set of knives, that you will find around these days.

Obsidian scalpel vs steel skin#

While steel knives will be too sharp (yes, a knife can be too sharp) to skin the animal properly without cutting/ piercing the skin, an obsidian knife will work just fine.īut, are obsidian knives not sharper than stainless steel knives? They are, and by far, but they won’t work on the skin the same way that a stainless steel knife would – and you get the benefit of speed to match. Once the initial cuts are done, obsidian knives could make skinning very easy and fast for you. If you are simply doing kitchen cooking, I don’t see why you would need an obsidian knife.įind a proper kitchen knife or buy a small knife set and you will have all you ever need.įor hunters and outdoor lovers who process game, or butchers who handle the meat processing themselves, I might see why you would need such a knife. That, and steel is easier to work with/ modify into different forms and shapes than you could manage with materials like obsidian. Thus, it makes sense that steel is used for the majority of knives you see around today. While it doesn’t do any one thing (such as sharpness, strength, longevity, etc) too well singly, it combines all of these in just enough quantities into one body. One of the reasons why steel, in its various forms, remains great for knife making is because of all the fine features that it brings to the table. The material makes for sharper knives than steel can ever manage, but it does so at the expense of the strength that you get from a steel knife. Given how sharp the shards can get even without sharpening, it was a ready cutting tool. It is, thus, little wonder that obsidian was one of the knife tools for the early man. If you know high carbon steel knives, you know that they are as sharp as can be and retain that edge for long also. This is the same reason why most collectors and knife lovers have them.Įven though you won’t be able to use them the same way as a normal knife due to their brittleness, they will still perform well when you use them.įor comparison, an obsidian glass knife will be sharper than the best high carbon steel knife that you can find out there. Well, these knives have found their way into surgery because of how sharp and precise they can get. What are the pros of an obsidian knife?įor something so brittle, why are we even talking about it? Now, consider the fact that obsidian is even more brittle than that ceramic. Imagine if that bulk of ceramic that was your kitchen sink is fined down into a thin sheet of the knife blade – and imagine how easy it would be to break. However, it takes enough force and impact to see it start breaking and chipping. That is made of ceramic and you can see how hard it gets. If you have never come across an obsidian material before, think about your traditional bathroom sink. However, even though it cools into a hard material, it is still brittle and can be shattered on impact. That cooling hardens the material which makes it possible to obtain as a mineral (even though obsidian is not considered a mineral, no thanks to the lack of crystalline structure). That said, the obsidian is formed when molten lava runs and cools rapidly. This includes regions in Argentina, Chile, Georgia, Canada, Australia, and Japan, among others. Since it is a volcanic material, it can only be found at volcanic sites. What are the pros of an obsidian knife?Ī little history as to where the material for this knife is found won’t hurt.