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Some scalpels are for cutting, some for scraping, and others for other purposes. Scalpels come in a variety of shapes and sizes to suit different needs. This means it is sharp enough for surgery and sharp enough to cause no harm by being too blunt and cheap enough to be disposable. When discussing the sharpness of a scalpel, we are talking about surgical sharpness. It is composed of a handle and a blade which comes in different shapes and sizes, you can find a scalpel with long flat handles or with wider base handles and also a scalpel with a double-edged blade is called a lancet.Ī scalpel is usually the classical name in English for pretty much anything that makes an incision. For centuries, men have sharpened tools, knives, swords and razors.A scalpel is a bladed instrument, known for being very sharp, it is used in anatomical dissections, surgeries, and maybe other crafting works. With the proliferation of disposable utility blades and cartridge razors, what was once a commonplace skill has become a lost art, practiced mostly by knife enthusiasts, hand tool woodworkers and men who shave with straight razors. Whether sharpening by hand with hones and abrasives can produce a finer edge than industrial scale, mechanized sharpening seems likely, but it is something we will investigate. Undoubtedly, the modern preference for mechanized and disposable sharpening is the choice of convenience rather than a confirmation of quality. In principle, there are two general approaches to quantifying “sharp” or the keenness of a blade’s edge. The simplest and most common is through comparison and evaluation of use. Comparing the force to cut, the smoothness of the chiseled wood, the thinness of the sliced vegetable, or the closeness of the shave provides a relative quantification of sharp. Such comparisons are more than sufficient to allow a practitioner to develop and evaluate a honing procedure. To a Scientist, this phenomenological approach begs the questions of why? and how? and provides little insight into how the process can be improved. My approach will be to use electron microscopy to physically observe the geometry and polish of the edge and to quantify the edge width and bevel angle. The goal is to provide an understanding of what is happening at the blade’s edge.
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The centuries old design of a straight razor provides the ideal system for scientific study of sharpening. Honing on a flat surface with the bevel and spine contacting the hone fixes the angle of the apex. The steel used in a straight razor is hardened and tempered to optimize the achievable keenness. In our experiments, the use of a straight razor will allow us to fix the honing angle at the value determined by the spine thickness and blade width. The expression razor sharp undoubtedly refers to the fact that the keenness required of a functional straight razor is very near the limits of what the physical properties of steel permits. I will show that the apex of the blade must be thinned to about 100nm (one tenth of a micron) to comfortably shave facial whiskers. At the same time, the limit of what can be achieved with honing and stropping of a steel blade is on the order of 50nm. The intriguing aspect of a straight razor edge is the fact that it can be evaluated in a especially sensitive way, slicing hard whiskers from some of the softest and most sensitive skin.
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This provides an added layer of complexity, identifying the properties of a blade that affect the selectivity of cutting whiskers over cutting skin. Correlation of the microscopic edge characteristics to the shaving performance is also a topic to be investigated. The scanning electron microscope allows imaging of a honed blade’s edge (or apex) at sufficiently high magnification and contrast to assess the polish of the bevel, the uniformity of the edge and to make relative comparisons of sharpness.īelow, two SEM images taken edge-on of honed blades.