#COST OF AN OBSIDIAN SCALPEL HOW TO#

Diamonds clock in at around 10 on this scale, so obsidian is in the middle of the road here. It’s rated between 5 and 5.5 on what’s known as the Mohs scale of hardness. Obsidian is reasonably strong but is also very brittle. In short, obsidian blades are impossibly sharp. This is around ten times sharper than the sharpest razor blade. The edge of an obsidian blade can be just 3 nanometers across. With a conchoidal fracture, the line is much straighter and therefore sharper. When you zoom in very close to a steel blade, the edge looks more like a saw than a straight line. This kind of fracture looks very different from the edge of a traditional chef’s knife. The way that obsidian breaks are known as a conchoidal fracture. Their staggeringly thin blades are the reason for this. Obsidian knives are currently the sharpest possible knives known to man.

#COST OF AN OBSIDIAN SCALPEL HOW TO#

The same is true for the edge of a knife.Ĭlick here to learn how to test knife sharpness. If you dive fingertips first into the pool, however, the thinner, pointed shape created by your body will glide into the water effortlessly. If you ‘belly flop’ into the water, you’re going to have a much harder time actually penetrating its surface. A good analogy to use is to imagine diving into a pool of water.

The thinner the blade, the less force is needed for it to cut food – or anything for that matter – effectively. The main factor that impacts the sharpness of a blade is its thickness.

Cost of an obsidian scalpel