9/23/2023 0 Comments Oregon obsidian knife![]() Knappers are able to shape obsidian because there is “no grain, no direction,” to the structure of the material. ![]() For pre-Iron Age cultures, such constant resharpening eventually turned spear points into knives, knives into arrowheads. Obsidian, however, does not hold a sharp edge well and has to be resharpened by chipping off flakes along the edge. “When you get cut by obsidian, it severs individual cells. “If you get cut by surgical steel, it actually tears out a row of cells,” he said. Obsidian can provide “the sharpest edge known to man,” Ratzat said. A leather pad protects his leg from the sharp edges of the obsidian. Ratzat works with a few simple tools in a workshop in his garage, tapping away at a chunk of obsidian on his thigh with a round copper bar. “I found out there were classes in how to do this, and that there were other knappers around the country who did this kind of thing.” That interest was rekindled 12 years ago when Ratzat walked into a knapping demonstration being given by an archaeologist, John Fagan, who at the time was for the Army Corps of Engineers. I just dinked around with it, and by the time I got out of high school I was able to make an arrowhead that would fool most people.” “I had no instruction, no books, nothing. “By the time I was 12 I was regularly finding arrowheads, and trying to make arrowheads myself. “I became a very avid artifact hunter around our home near Rogue River in southern Oregon,” he recalls. Ratzat traces his fascination with knapping to the discovery of an arrowhead when he was only 6 years old. ![]() Ratzat supplies other knappers around the country with “spalls,” chunks of obsidian he gathers from volcanic areas in eastern Oregon. ![]() But some are chipped from modern “high-tech” silicon materials such as fiber-optic glass, which has a unique sheen. Most of his knives are made of obsidian, a natural volcanic glass. Ratzat’s knives bring $75-$400 each, depending on their size, the material they’re made from and the workmanship. The process is called knapping, a word that means to strike a quick, hard blow. Ratzat, 43, is a self-taught craftsman in the ancient art of creating knives, arrowheads and other tools from obsidian, flint, agate and similar materials. Craig Ratzat of Springfield, Ore., makes knives the old-fashioned way: by chipping off one flake at a time. ![]()
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