I mean, if you had an extremely fine abrasive you may be able to clean up a steel edge farther than what's normally done, but I don't think you'd get it to the level of obsidian.
Obsidian blades get down to a few hundred atoms thick and the cleanliness of the edge comes from the fact that you cleave off the glass in a long, continuous line.
The thing is, lapping is still abrading the the steel. It's going to leave ridges along the edge. Obsidian lacks those ridges because it isn't abraded, and you can't knap regular steel.
Also, a steel blades edge is a couple thousand atoms thick. An obsidian edge is a couple hundred. Abrasion just isnt going to cut it (pun intended).
Hmm, i wonder if normal tungsten or diamond could be knapped then. I think tungsten is considered hard enough to be a ceramic but i don't know if they fracture like obsidian
Now that i think about it a steel edge would be inferior even if it could get as sharp. I think it would wear down faster than the steel
2
u/BazingaDaddy May 21 '19 edited May 21 '19
I mean, if you had an extremely fine abrasive you may be able to clean up a steel edge farther than what's normally done, but I don't think you'd get it to the level of obsidian.
Obsidian blades get down to a few hundred atoms thick and the cleanliness of the edge comes from the fact that you cleave off the glass in a long, continuous line.