Native American Knife

well, it wouldnt have any special additaves or chemistry controll, probly just a carbon steel of some sort. My dad collects Native American stuff and he has a knife, its definately not stainless and such. I can take pix if you are really interested.

It would have most likely been tradesteal with the west, whatever could be gotten ahold of. They probly did nothing blade wise, other than basic sharpening. (just guesses, i dont have the knowledge my dad has). As for knives, they were not necessarily metal, i would say that they used rock and obsidion for alot of knives, not just arrow heads. If you are really interested i can talk to my dad about this.
 
American Indians for the most part, did not forge or make their own knives. Instead, they would trade for pre-finished knives or blades.

In terms of steel nothing fancy. Mostly straight carbon steels. A steel like 1095 would be close. Cast steel was popular also.
 
If your speaking of before the coming of the europeans, it would be a blade of flint, obsian, or similar rock. the handles would have been antler and the blades would have been attached with sinew and pine pitch glue, or hide glue. When he eurpoeans came they traded cheap plain carbon steel blades in the form of "butcher" style knives, mainly the English and Germans. The french traded similar butcher style knives in carbon, but they also had a couple of other style carbon steel blades. The handles wwere usually hardwood. During the fur trade "era". There were many baldes, the 1st most common type being the russell "green river" knives. They had carbon blades. The 1st ones they made were butcher style knives with hardwood handles, pinned, then later riveted on. They also came up with a skinner blade, "dadely" style blade, which was more of a modified clip blade, resembling more of a spear than anything else. They also later made many blade sizes and shapes. Sheffield england and Germany also produced many blades, bowies, spear blades, etc. Many came up with different knives for trade to the indians. You have to take into account an indian would use any knife they could get their hands on, trade for, etc. They also, some, very few, made their own knives from scrap iron, swords, etc. these were usually quite crude, but serviceable. They would also use file blades, but this was not done very often. Contrary to what most believe, files were valuable commodities and rarely did blacksmiths use file blades for knife making. As far as indians making their own. This was not done until much later (late 1800's).

I hope this helps some?
 
The French through the NorthWest Co traded thousands of folding knives all over North America. They have been found as far away as Texas.

The British through the Hudson Bay Co traded a large number of broad bladed trade daggers in northern North America.

Prior to the arrival of white people the Inuit were mining
copper along the Coppermine River and using that native (metallic) copper to make knives and such.
 
A skilled amerindian knapper using primarily obsidian, jasper, agate, chert, could make a finer edge (measured in microns) than modern craftsmen using steel and modern tools. They've examined them under microscopes, amazing skills.
 
ARman said:
A skilled amerindian knapper using primarily obsidian, jasper, agate, chert, could make a finer edge (measured in microns) than modern craftsmen using steel and modern tools. They've examined them under microscopes, amazing skills.
Click to expand...

Modern tools? What about a modern honed and stropped straight razor?
Could this be a reference to factory 'new' condition knives primarily sharpened on a sanding belt?

No doubt amazing skills, but if we spent as much time sharpening as they did chipping and perfecting their edge, I think we would be able to do better. We don't spend that kind of time though, usually.
 
Razors are no biggie. Microtome knives for slicing thin specimins for microscope slides are sharper than razors and the ceramic/sapphire/diamond variety have a much thinner edge than the steel ones. Plastic surgeons often use obsidian scalpels because the edge is much sharper than steel scalpels producing a much finer cut and less scar tissue. The only problem with flint or obsidian is that they are fragile and the edge is more easily damaged by sharp blows and contact with hard objects.
 
Obsidian is mostly non-crystallized silicon dioxide, which means that the edge can be knapped as thin as one molecule. Steel contains carbides and grain, which are much larger, so it's impossible for steel to have same fine edge. CPM and BG-42 steels are manufactured with smaller grain then plain regular steel; then there's liquidmetal which does not have grain structure and can have a molecule-thin edge. George Tichbourne made some liquidmetal knives.
 
Okay, but that means that the edge was the result of the material used, not just the skills, since we can duplicate the result with a similar material, and all their skills wouldn't be able to do it to a hunk of steel anyway.

The fact that they figured out how to do it is still impressive.
 
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