OK, crazy might describe it, but I’ve been kicking this around for a while. A friend of mine, many years ago, was in to woodcraft skills, a hunter, tanner, etc. He tried flintknapping with the focus on arrowheads, but the ancients also made other cutting tools from flint that had been knapped to form literally razor sharp edges for skinning, etc, even ancient surgery. It’s well known that a flint edge can rival surgical steels in edge fineness, so why can’t they be used as a shaving edge (it is suspected that some were used for this very purpose). As careful as we are with our straights, you’d have to treat a flint edge with true TLC! Suspect the design would have to be more like a Japanese blade than the typical Western design. The major drawback I can see to this is forming the continuous level surface that we are accustomed to for shaving the face; I personally have no experience in flintknapping, but how cool would this be if a way could be found to accomplish this. Any thoughts?
Oh my gosh! Thought I had a real epiphany there. No such thing as an original idea, at least for me. Thanks. Still gotta try it!
Obsidian is relatively easy to knap compared to flint or chert. I used to make crude looking points and leave 'em laying around to play jokes on my buddies that were also point hunters. I'd drop one every now and then when we were out point hunting and let 'em find it and brag about it. Never tried shaving with any of that stuff, but it will leave an incredibly sharp edge if it broken correctly. Getting long somewhat straight edges is an art that I never mastered and I've read a couple of books about how it was supposedly accomplished. All I can say is if you want to try it, wear some stout gloves, AND SAFETY GLASSES!! Google or startpage search "flint knapping" and you'll get a lot of hits. There is some pretty stuff for sale here. http://flintknappers.com/
I've also thought along those lines. What I've wondered is since Ceramic knife blades have been with us for quite sometime now, why has no one made a Ceramic SE blade. To me it would seem a shaving match made in heaven. Sharpness and longevity as long as you didn't drop it. I do wonder what the price per blade would have to be. However even if it was extravagant if could well be worth it.....
I read something a while back where a guy tried to turn a ceramic knife into a str8 razor. It seems ceramic works pretty well for a knife with a fairly thick edge but if you try to put a really fine edge on it you get a lot of microchips. Those are actually ok for a knife since they act like tiny serrations but not so good for a shaving blade I guess. The guy was never able to make a decent shaving blade from a knife. Maybe there's a different ceramic that would work?
Well I guess that link answers a BIG question!!! At $175 a pop it's probably "NOT" worth it to the shaver. However if you spend $30 on blades a year and my math is correct the blade would need to stay sharp, still shave and not break for 5.83 years for you to come out even. I don't know what the average shavers cost per year for blades is, I know my yearly blade cost isn't close to $30 however. Another big problem in my eyes would be the fact that "YMMV" counts for so much in blades. So if the blade doesn't suit your face your pretty much stuck with a "VERY" expensive and for your face useless blade. Perhaps a blade exchange could be created.... Then there is the problem, if you were to use the blade a couple of times and drop the razor and break the blade well, I'm pretty sure your neighbors will hear the cursing, at least I know mine would... Well I guess this post has changed my idea's on ever getting a Ceramic blade...
