[eartrumpet]

I have found obsidian veins where the Indians would show up and camp for a while. They would rough out blanks for arrowheads and lances and knives then leave for their other places. That cut down on weight of the nodules. All around the vein and chips and flakes from roughing the blanks, but no broken points where they finished them.

I always pick up any obsidian I find. Sometimes a small flake will have one sharp edge. Get to handling it and suddenly you find a way it fits between your thumb and a finger or two very comfortably, and leaves the razor edge exposed for cutting.

A few years back we were about to skin an elk and my boy asked if we could use obsidian. Why not? He got a hunk and I am not a good knapper, but I can whack a hunk with a rock until a big flake comes off. And it comes of ridiculously sharp. I sliced inside the legs and down the belly faster than any knife ever did. The sharp edge was a semi-circle about 4" long and made an incredible skinning blade and the elk was done in minutes.

And sometimes, it helps to get lucky when hunting the big stuff

[Flag_This]

"And it comes of ridiculously sharp. I sliced inside the legs and down the belly faster than any knife ever did."

A quote you might find interesting:

"Good quality obsidian fractures down to single molecules which can produce a cutting edge 500 times sharper than the sharpest steel scalpel blade ("American Medical News", Nov. 2, 1984:21)."