You can actually take the diamond attached to the core weapon further. They make scalpels where the edge is basically covered in diamond dust. You could do that to a sword but I'm not sure how long term it would be even if the sword doesn't break in any way the dust will be ground away at some point.
The diamond-dust idea would work very poorly, as all the diamond would be gone after the first sharpening, and surface particles like that are really only effective as abrasives, anyway, which isn't going to be particularly helpful for a sword. Diamond would make a good surface coating on the flats (reduced friction, corrosion, etc) and possibly a decent-but-not-ideal reinforcement in a metal matrix composite edge, but anything else is the domain of stuff like disposable razor blades and drill bits.
@@irrelevantfish1978diamonds would actually make for much better clubs than edged weapons. While it is true that diamonds have what is called ‘perfect cleavage’ (insert Dolly Parton joke here) they can be cut and polished in such a way that force applied directly into the point of the diamond will not break it. You can imbed a faceted diamond (culet side down) using percussive force into a steel block without damaging the diamond. As a bench jeweler I’ve done it many times. Diamonds are much tougher than given credit as long as they’re not hit along their cleavage planes. Of course, as the crystals get larger, the likelihood of striking it on a cleavage plane increases. So you definitely wouldn’t want to use one for a war pick. But smaller stone sizes would easily go through steel armor. The problem is, they’d be so small that their capacity for penetration into what’s underneath the armor (ie human body) would be negligible. On bare flesh, they’d give you a nasty scratch or a superficial puncture hole. Where they’d shine (pun intended) would be for thin bone demolition. Multiple diamond points driven into a skull should serve to drastically weaken the structure making it easier to splinter and shatter the skull.
Start with mini Minotaur. I call that song “the solution”. Listen to it every time you have a song stuck in your head and it will guarantee remove it without replacing it.
My biggest problem with diamond as a sword material is actually the cleavage planes found in the crystal. There's a few angles where if you give diamond a good whack it break clean in two, and the force to do that isn't even that high. This is actually how jewelers cut diamonds into the shape that they are.
Pretty good, but partially inaccurate. Diamond has 4 cleavage planes (parallel to the crystal faces). Jewellers don’t cleave diamonds (at least not on purpose). Jewellers are people who make/repair/sell jewelry. Those who cut and polish gemstones other than diamond are called lapidaries. Diamond cutters are those who rough out the diamond crystals into the desired shapes and give them the final polish. Cleaving used to be a method for splitting diamond crystals, but it is inconsistent and possibly destructive. Diamond coated disc saws and then later on lasers are the preferred method for removing sections of the crystals.
It's funny because when I was a teenager I thought hardness was the sole aspect to define how "good" something like a blade or a piece of armor would be and I thought "holy cow, maybe a sword and plate armour made of Chromium would be super tough"... how wrong I was when I learned about the brittleness of "super"-hard materials xD
well you werent entirely wrong (atleast about the armor bit) ceramic plates (superhard and brittle) are used in some ballistic body armor. Usually combined with kevlar or some other woven armor behind it to catch the fragments
@@st.haborym yep i know, once a ceramic plate is hit if you happened to get shot there again gl. doesnt change the fact that they exist though and are in use. Even if you wear ballistic armor the goal is still to not get shot in the first place, the plate is there to protect most vitals on the off chance you do.
@@st.haborym I mean, a ghillie suit is not armour. It's camouflage. It's either worn without armour or alongside it, but cannot be put into the same category.
I think the reason the Macuahuitl didn't really perform that well because it wasn't made too accurately. Often you see them in depictions with chunky knapped pieces but this wasn't the case. They actually used prismatic blades, which are extremely thin and sharp but really hard to make. The blade portions are usually long flakes cracked from a big block (the prism) You mentioned tapering of the club portion, which is actually how a lot of them were made, tapered toward the edges like a sword. I remember a source saying there was distal taper in a Macuahuitl but I can't remember if it was pre-columbian or not. Scishow made a video about how the sharpest edge in the world was made and it can't cut anything. Thought we might get that as the video this week.
Yeah, people didn't go to war with poorly made weapons if they could help it. These folks didn't do football, war was as much a way of showing off and having fun as it was about politics, power and religion. So a well off warrior would definitely have something nice to swing around.
While both of you have made some good points. 1. A well made glass obsidian is still going to shatter and break off into the flesh. 2. These cheaply looking wooden clubs where still the best they had to offer in the terms of weapons. 2.a They did have access to schinopsis balansae. A tree whose wood is 4,570 lbf. In laymans terms that is really hard wood. So why does Skalagrims citations looks crude? Well, maybe because people do not go to war with weapons that are expensive. When you need a large number of warriors you need to be able to supply them all with weapons that are only good enough. If these people had armor they would have learned that obsidian is next to useless against it. Like they did when they fought the Spanish. Even in todays standards our weapons are made by the lowest bidder. Military contracts, still pay out big time. But they have to ask for the cheapest they can get at their standard. It is why colt makes M16 rifle. And Armalite does not make the M16. Even though Armalite are the orignal designers of the M16.
@@xPumaFangx If anything, these people did have textile armour(which even among Europeans was far more common then metal armour when you count the gambeson people wore underneath metal armour) and the wooden clubs(even if inexpensively made)were well made(if only because the crafts men were skilled and poorly made weapons are very undesirable) and only stopped being used do to the sheer effectiveness steel armour and arms has in countering glass weapons.
@@xPumaFangx whoa hold on here what do you mean "both of us"? Your comment here is only responding to the guy who responded to me. I was making a SPECIFIC reference to Skall's SPECIFIC Machuahuitl. Nothing about it not shattering (in fact, prismatic blades are even more likely to shatter into the wounds). Nothing even about ancient blades. However, your assertion that maybe this was the "cheap version" like a commoners weapon, or that it was produced quickly. It was not. The point of my comment was actually that it's the opposite; these weren't just cheap clubs. I said what I said because both the archaeological evidence and the native peoples have said that the Machuahuitl uses prismatic blades. His version is inaccurate and not made well, which is why it didn't hold up as well or worked as intended. We know that chunky blades on these weapons only happened after colonization, and is the byproduct of their biases (i.e. look at this thing it's barely functional and it's their elite weapon, no wonder they were conquered type of attitude)
@Indrid Cold what the hell are you on about? Tf does this have to do with anything? Also literally doesn't apply to the Aztecs considering the many things they invented/built/made so I'm super confused?
Thank goodness somebody finally said this. Yes, diamonds are very, very hard, but they're susceptible to fracturing when under pressure and with enough blunt force. A diamond sword might as well be made of glass for all the good it will do.
@@DIREWOLFx75 In fairness, gold tools are very short lived in Minecraft, maybe even worse than real life. They're almost 8x shorter lived than iron tools, and even half as durable as wood.
"Thank goodness somebody finally said this." Yes, because this is the first time someone has ever covered the topic of "why not diamond sword?" on the Internet.
@@DIREWOLFx75hey im not familiar with materials at all, could you elaborate? im assuming you mean that gold would be very soft but flexible? like the bronze example in the vid itd just bend much quicker?
I have a synthetic ruby edged leatherworking tool, with the ruby edge set into brass. I could see that a bronze sword could similarly have an edge of ruby, sapphire or even diamond, but ruby is likely tougher and easier to grind to a razor edge, while still being harder than almost any steel. It would be a very pretty blade too.
Used to have an obsidian knife,and what I figured was granite (yardrock) that I fashioned into kinda a santoku profile knife myself. Both met there end from people just being a little bit careless with ceramic plates in the dish sink. The obsidian knife was let go into the water and cracked on contact with a plate from maybe 6 inches at most of a fall through water. And the granite chefknife had a plate come into the water ontop of it. Thats my experience with stone knives durability. Were defeated by clay technology 🤔
What you said about somehow binding diamond into a steel sword blade to make its cutting edge up is basically *exactly* how I figured a diamond blade might be done realistically. Everyone seems to think that diamonds are *indestructible* , which's probably what lead them to think it'd be a good material to make a sword out of; but it's *not* because like you said, the *harder* something is, the better it can retain a sharp edge, but the more *brittle* it is too. Also, it's nice that someone *else* recognizes that the diamond scarcity is an *artificial* one meant to keep their prices jacked up higher than most people can afford; all you have to do to make one is take a lump of something rich in carbon, like coal, and pressurize it for however long it takes to transform it. If we did that with all the coal we have in this country, diamonds would be so *abundant* that they'd be basically *worthless* .
You're on the internet. Diamonds being an artificial economy is almost as big a meme as the hardest material in the world thing. A lot of people do actually know.
While _natural_ diamond's price is inflated, _synthetic_ diamond's isn't. Yes, carbon is cheap, but the equipment and energy required to turn it into diamond really ain't. To quote Wikipedia: "The original method [of making diamond] uses high pressure and high temperature (HPHT) and is still widely used because of its relatively low cost. The process involves large presses that can weigh hundreds of tons to produce a pressure of 5 GPa (730,000 psi) at 1,500 °C (2,730 °F)."
@@irrelevantfish1978 *woah* ; I don't know how many atmospheres of pressure that is, but that's a little over *thrice* the temperature of the surface of *Venus* !
@@ezrafaulk3076 It's about 50,000atm, which is roughly 5x higher than needed to squeeze a sword blade until it cracks. Needless to say, building equipment that can generate that kind of pressure without self-destructing is a bit tricky. 😉
Synthetic diamonds are commonly used in drill bits for deep drilling. Would love to hear from someone who uses them regularly on their tolerances and draw backs. In the meantime I'll keep working away on my war drill.
There is also natural industrial diamonds but I think those sorts of drill bits tend to be grinding rather than cutting tools. Various masonry tools are like that.
Those tend to be tiny diamond abrasives mixed in with tungsten carbide to improve the latter's wear properties. (in part to reduce wear, in part to cause the drill tip to wear unevenly so it self-sharpens.)
They’re used for drilling many hard things. You can go to your local hardware store and chances are you can buy drill bits or sets of different shaped burs that are coated in diamond crystals. Even needle files. Think sandpaper. And just like regular sandpaper, they will wear down eventually. The sharp pointy crystals will chip, gradually reducing their effectiveness. Also they can clog easily if the proper lubrication isn’t used when grinding softer materials.
I used to cut and core drill concrete, everything is tipped with rectangles of diamond/soft metal rectangles. They are designed so that the metal wears away while cutting and new diamonds are exposed. The problem was that if you hit something hard and not abrasive, like large rebar, you could wind up polishing the edge to where it doesn't cut; until you run it through something abrasive like brick. And this is on everything from 8ft circular blades to the chainsaw ones.
Diamond is too fragile. Had a science proffessor basically tell me that if the pieces get any bigger than a small pebble then the pieces have a high risk of cracking. Basically it's too fragile, more akin to glass is how he described it. When used as an abrasive it shows it's hardness but when you crash and smack it it breaks.
So, the lesson I'm getting here, is that the Macuahuitl is almost a one-shot weapon. It will rightly _end_ the first guy you land a solid blow on assuming he's not wearing steel armor, but you're going to be doing _severe_ damage to your sword (actually it's kind of a saw, kind of a club thing?) in the process, greatly reducing its effectiveness. The next blow, in the same spot, might not have _any_ obsidian shards worth mentioning, so you have to reverse is to get in that second shot, but now _that_ side is wrecked too, so your third hit will have to be with a less-optimal part of the blade, closer to your hand, and before long, if you're still up, you are fighting with a very clunky club that might still have a few jagged or pokey bits sticking out of it.
And if you are fighting an actual man rather than a target dummy or water bottle, the man would raise a shield or weapon so your macuahuitl loses its edge without even contacting flesh. There is a good reason nations that mastered metal conquered most of the world while those still messing around with wood and stone fell into the history books......
You know, in the old Star Wars comics from the 90s, the ones by Tom Veitch and Kevin J. Anderson, the Jedi used kyber crystal swords before they invented lightsabers. This kind of reminded me of that.
0:42 Not anymore. I don't exactly remember the details, but they did recently discover a small deposit of carbon in a form that was stronger than diamond(different type of structure).
a fun note with minecraft's diamonds is that they were likely inspired by dwarf fortress's adamantine, which in turn took direct inspiration from tolkien's mithril. both adamantine in dwarf fortress and diamonds in minecraft are incredibly durable, light blue materials found very deep in the earth, with a propensity for being found near lava (or, more accurately, magma), and the original creator of minecraft has stated that he took a fair bit of inspiration from dwarf fortress in the game's early design.
Yeah, the hardness scale (or mohs scale) is often confused with durability when the former is purely how hard it is to scratch. Because of this difference, many tools use sapphire and ruby as they are a 9 in hardness yet much more durable than diamond allowing them to be used as industrial abrasives. Similarly, diamond would be more useful in drilling/grinding role than any kind of precursive impact.
That topic makes me think of cross-country ski poles. Good ones are made of carbon fibers, which makes them extremely light and extremely rigid, which is good for competition because it means that you have less weight to lift and a bigger proportion of your upper body's strength gets transmitted to the ground. The downside is that they aren't elastic at all and break very easily.
Have you made any videos explaining the differences from one kind of steel to another? You mention them often, and I'd love to know more of the specifics about why each one is used for its own specific purposes. Also, the short answer/long answer joke is a favorite of mine, and I was happy to see it used again.
The dark elf Drizzt Do'Urden from R.A. Salvatore's D&D books has a shamshir scimitar called Icingdeath made of steel, with a diamond-coated edge. The implication is that ground-up diamond dust lines the edge to facilitate cutting, without risking fracturing. And there are modern day bullets made of sintered metals, non-lead non-metals, and polymers, which are designed to be hard enough to damage soft tissue, but to break apart into dust when they hit walls or glass. They are popular when shooting steel targets.
1:34 I use this Phrase as a shameless pun for my question. How effective do you all think are the weapons of the four Yonko (four emperors) in One Piece corresponding to their fighting styles? I mean the four Yonko Whitebeard, Shanks, big mom and Kaido. Would there be more effective weapons for their particular fighting styles? (i know all of their weapons are super powerful or even legendary for the first two mentioned characters.) Big mom is a Wildcard here due to having 3 Main "weapons". Here i would ask are the choosen elements of fire and lightning the most effective? Or would maybe water, lightning and a pistol be more powerful?
We use diamond coated cutting tools sometimes when milling soft metals like aluminium or copper. While more expensive than regular carbide tools, they last a lot longer.
There is some recent development on CVD (chemical vapor deposition) diamond coatings on substrates that survive more than 800°C. This process would destroy the heat treatment of normal spring steel, but maybe one finds an alloy that could work under these conditions. It would still just be a coating, but it would create a diamond edge (similar to other modern hard coatings on tools, just a little thicker).
Here's a video topic for you: In Raymond Feist's Midkemia novels there are a people called the Tsurani. They come from a metal poor world. Thus most of what they make is from wood. They wear wooden armor, albeit from trees not found in our world. Does wood make effective armor?
I actually think Skall did this one a WHILE back if you want to dig through the archives. The TLDR is; kind of. Shields are effectively wooden armor, but a wooden suit you step into makes less sense.
Something of significant interest I think is worth looking into are Diamond drills and saw blades. Both seem to have quite significant toughness (high rpm/energy contact) but are used for the high hardness. Modern technology is pretty incredible; it might not look like you’d imagine a Diamond blade, but I’d bet there’s something workable there.
The metal holding the diamonds on blades and bits is relatively softer and designed to wear away as it cuts the abrasive concrete, exposing new diamonds to cut. Hitting a large piece of rebar could actually polish the cutting surface smooth and it wouldn't cut anymore.
I have some knowledge of exotic high-hardness steels sometimes used in high-performance knives. (Most of the steels were developed for other applications but can be “tuned” to create extremely high performance knife steels). In regards to hardness, the steels I’m referring to range from 62 to 70+ hrc. (52100, S60V, K390, Maxamet, Rex45/M4/Hap40, Rex121, for just a few examples). Each steel also has a potential range of attainable hardness. Their very high hardness give them a lot of strength to hold very thin edge geometries without deforming (0.005 behind the cutting edge bevel thickness, for example). These knives are very specialized in use and only for experienced users. The hardest large-sized knives I’m aware of are custom competition choppers which I think you can find as high as ~62-65 hrc (CPM4V and M4 are common as I understand it), but again, their geometries and heat treats are very specialized and not suitable for swords. Some ceramics have a degree of flexibility, but those are still very new to the knife world and I don’t think they would work well without significant modification, nor provide much advantage over typical sword steels. I think there’s an idea that extremely hard = a sword that can cut anything, but that is not the case. Even a hypothetical diamond sword that is as strong and tough as steel would not magically be able to cut anything better. It is the geometry that cuts and it’s about pulling the full potential out of materials to support the needed geometry. Geometry also typically plays a much bigger role in the durability of the actual edge than material, at least to an extent. (Copper and steel are worlds apart and that was evident in this video). The point is that a sword would still need sword-like cutting geometry and the typical materials used to make them work just fine for that, so there is no point to extremely hard swords. They offer no practical advantage. I’ve seen some pretty interesting developments in titanium alloy swords, though. To me, that is where people should be looking if they are curious about exotic blade materials relevant to swords. I recommend looking into Larrin Thomas of “KnifeSteelNerds” as well as his book if anyone is interested in some technical reading.
At my job we use diamond tools. What they are is a standard tungsten carbide end mill coated in a fine coating of diamond dust and adhesive. The diamonds are "pre shattered" in the form of dust and you still get the effects of their hardness. We use it for some seriously abrasive jobs like cutting PVC plastic and carbon fiber
I found a video out of England, where a material scientist talked about different grade steels, and there uses in knife making. I think i is easy to confuse toughness and strength.
Great video Skal! Diamond weapons in general would be a great video topic. Could you make diamond arrowheads, for example? I feel like you could get away with the diamond being so brittle, since arrowheads are disposable and have a one-time use.
From what I have heard, well-made Machuahuitl have long straight flakes of obsidian that are not flintknapped but cleaved off. They are removed from larger pieces of very pure obsidian with an edge that is already sharp and close to perfectly straight, and are considerably sharper than what is possible with metal.
Many tests with more crude flintknapped or spiked versions show it behaving more like a club, but the best historical examples had long, near-atomically smooth blades and could cut quite effectively. The Spanish considered the weapons to be a type of sword.
I remember reading an article from at least 10 years ago about a process of applying a diamond coating on drill bits via lasers. Doing that with a steel sword seems like it would produce a better "diamond sword". In terms of fantasy diamond swords and price of diamonds. I think in many of the fantasy settings with magic spells you could probably use a spell that could generate and sustain the conditions we use for making synthetic diamonds as well.
As someone who lives in the Yucatan among Mayans, they've told me that the "l" in certain words like Macuahuitl is not silent, instead you stick your tongue out a little when making the "l" sound. It's difficult, but the natives can do it consistently since some people here still speak Mayan.
Interesting that you bring up composite construction with hard crystals embedded in a ductile matrix-- because heat treated steel is exactly such a composite in its molecular microstructure, with hard but brittle carbides suspended in a ductile ferrous matrix. Different heat treating protocols can alter the volume, size, and distribution of carbide crystals, thus resulting in a different balance of physical properties of the steel.
Essentially the thing that no one gets about a mineral's "hardness" or "softness" according to the Mohs scale is that it's *not* based on how difficult it is to *break.* It is based on how difficult it is to *scratch the smooth surface of,* and that's why diamond just makes no sense as a sword even when everyone thinks that it does.
This brings the sword Tinkledeath from the Inheritance Cycle to mind. Angela, the current wielder, says it's made of diamond, but it bends more than any other blade that main character Eragon has ever seen before. This makes me think that the blade is made of graphene, not normal diamond.
Re: you could make a Machuahuitl with diamond? You could make one that was knapped. But with bronze age technology available to the Aztecs (i.e. no laser cutters or lab-grown diamonds), I doubt you could make that perfectly sharp blade you get with obsidian. It would be this nasty edge you see in flintknapped or stone pseudo-Machuahuitls. Diamond does not produce natural atomically-sharp flakes the way obsidian does, and in some ways wide availability of diamond instead of obsidian would probably push people to just not bother and use copper blades. Something the Aztecs did have, as they used them as money.
I see pcd used in CNC machining where The main tool is a steel piece and the pcd is a coating which is not so dissimilar to the idea of a hard jacket and soft core. Usually those tools are insanely expensive so I don't see them in wide scale or large tools very much. But if there's any hope it would be something like that. Maybe not as a combat weapon but could make for a good kitchen knife perhaps.
What about diamond impregnation? You just make an ordinary good quality steel sword but the cutting edge will be similar to the edges of diamond drill bits, where diamond particles are mixed with a powdered metal matrix such as nickel, cobalt, or tungsten carbide. The mixture is then pressed into the desired shape around the steel core of the sword and heated to a high temperature to bond the metal matrix to the diamond particles. That will " I guess "allow much better edge retention. Maybe finally katanas will cut tanks on the fly :D
TLDR: that produces a "super sandpaper", not a "super cutting edge". That's a grinding / abrasion cut, not a proper slice. "Diamond tipped" drill bits and saw blades get edge damage and deformations just as much as the metal the diamond is suspended in. In my experience tungsten carbide (drill bits, saw blades & grinders) is prone to shattering, while "diamond steel" sharpeners pick up knicks and burrs the same way as any other sharpening steel (they show it worse - big scratches on the blade from tiny knicks in the abrasive steel)
Diamond powder doesn't improve the structural strength of the base metal holding it. Diamond saws cut with spinning/sawing both because diamond powder excels at friction cuts, and because if you actually swung it you'd waste a lot of diamond impregnated material for not much cutting done. A sandblaster modified to fire diamond dust though, that'll shred a lot of things.
One thing to note is we can actually make Diamonds in any shape Out of human Ashes AKA Carbon. I think they could make Diamond Daggers with a certain Thickness and it could work. Go look at Diamonds being pressed by a compressor, They actually Dented and ruined equipment. So maybe it could be possible to have diamond weapons of some magnitude and them to be Created in any shape including arrows.
The issue with the Macuahuitl stopping in a wound because of the wood reminds me a reason why a forge which decided to make a warhammer 40k chainsword found. It will only go as deep as the length of the blades since the weapon's body is so much larger.
Awesome video Skall.. had an idea for a video. Maybe you could discuss weapons made out of railroad spikes. They have low carbon content, but smiths still make knives and hatchets out of them. Would love to see you break it down.
Maybe (if we are in scifi fantasy world) you would like the mono-molecular blade. It was used for example in book A lord from planet Earth from Sergey Lukyanenko. It was described there as one layer of some metal. It was entraped in some kind of magnetic field. The swordsman had to engage the autosharpening procedure every few swing through air, because the blade was blunted by air too. And it was really not durable. It was something like snap-off sword (more like chip-off).
wear better eye protection next time you test that weapon Skall. I agree its more a mace, after getting the glass into the skin they probably beat up their opponents into submission or death with the wood. Maybe their pijama looking clothing was made with that weapon in mind as well I can see how the obsidian weapons could get stuck if they do glancing slashes towards that type of clothes.
They used actual purpose built spears, spatha, and war darts. The switch over was massive population loss due to plague and civil war thus the late Roman army couldn’t just eat losses and keep going this the romans soldier had to be less aggressive and more versatile cus late roman army had to defend borders and fight organized kingdoms and empires more.
@How Ridiculous did some crazy stuff to a diamond. I forget what it was exactly, but it was equivalent to putting it on an anvil and hitting it with a sledgehammer. It got stuck int he hammer.(Or whatever steel thing it was, I forget.) They're less brittle than you might think!
"People still ask for this" I refuse to believe people who are asking are that ignorant. Diamond is literally just a glass made of pure carbon. They just want Skall to roast/take on the idea in detailed manner.
It is not glass. Glass is defined by it's amorphous, non-crystalline structure, literally the opposite from any actual mineral (such as diamond). That's like saying "a stick is just a sword made from wood".
@@NameNameson840 Нет.Колико ја знам стакло нема неке везе са дијамантима,а разлика у дијамантима у угљу је само у једном атому.Одакле му то да је стакло чист углјеник....добро ја ћу први признати да сам дудук за Мендељејеву таблицу.
Some materials, including some diamond-based abrasives, are self-sharpening. Simple summary: as some of the particles in the matrix get worn down, torn off, and/or broken they break and grind nearby material to be sharper. Note, this happens on a nano-scale usually with things like nano-particles in the matrix so really its not that much wearing down. You could coat sword in this for cutting. Or could make a club like bat with this if you use coarser particles not meant for cutting but for grinding. Harder material tends to transmit force better, so slightly better damage on club, and any drag along surface might lead nasty scrap like sandpaper but worse (however penetration low). Additionally, for club it would make more durable and focus impact slightly more during first contact.
To be fair... granite slabs are cut in quarries using chainsaws that have diamond carbide teeth. Of course, the teeth chains have to be changed out every so often and the chainsaw blade has to be kept water-cooled, but it's how they do it.
I’d love to see your take on the weapons from M.A.R. Barker’s Empire of the Petal Throne books set on the world of Tekumel where metals are scarce and some unique replacements were developed.
So, in materials engineering there’s a way to make a single crystal casting, meaning you could technically cast a single diamond crystal making it’s structure far more ductile and strong and thus far less likely to break. You could also make a much thicker profile whilst still being extremely sharp. New technology is great!
In anticipation universes there are some solution for that diamond blade thingy: In Cyberpunk there are sword with diamond monomomolecular thick blade edge cutting through anything like hot knife into butter. The blade being so brittle, it is totally interchangeable. edge is busted because you slayed a guy in its metal gear armor? No problem! Unscrew the blade edge or blade edge segments that are damaged, replace that by new one(s) and you're good to go! In Shadowrun there are dikoted blades, the blade is reinforced by a deposited layer of synthetic diamond, turning it into a deadly sharp and hard weapon, able to slice easier.
Even if it would be a weapon with a hard limit of uses, a diamond macuahuitl would still be incredibly dangerous to encounter. The diamonds surely would shatter, but that's exactly what's so dangerous. It's not just the initial cut, but the additional damage of sharp shards being released into the wound grinding slowly deeper into your flesh with each move you make.
I feel like it could potentially work, Skal, remember, when you talked about that wooden core from the Bronze Age that actually had Flint inserts to form a sword? That’s the only way I could see a diamond sword working, or like a Macahuitl Update : I posted this comment before I saw him do that Macahuitl test
Sounds like the glass sword in Crypt of the Necormancer would be a good way to implement a diamond weapon (albiet glass in this case). The sword does about 4 times regular damage, but it breaks the first time you use it.
Without wanting to sound arrogant, asking yourself the question speaks volumes about your basic knowledge of Physics. Which is why I find Skall's short and long answer appropriate. With a benevolent wink of course.
Skiallagrim: The issue is that Diamond is only strong in one direction, if you hit diamond in the opposite direction "It will shatter, like glass". The only way to Strenthen Diamond is to somehow fuse diamond with sheets of diamond in opposite directions. The problem is that diamonds, and Magnets likes to have poles. Making a diamond that is both Horizontal, and Vertical is hard to fuse, because the Crystals will move in the same direction. If you could turn Diamonds into a carbon fiber like structure, then its possible to make a diamond Sword.
When they make artificial diamonds. they certainly can put some armature inside. But if the armature is made of carbon too, it would turn into diamond as well.
Hey Skal, I’m a blacksmith and have had an idea floating in my head for a “Sword breaker” longsword or arming sword. Do you think it could be practical or do you think the potential cons outweigh the pros?
On the topic of the Macuahuitl. Could you in effect make a steel/diamond variant? In essence forge a steel sword with a gap to fasten in segments of diamond edge? How would something like that fare in combat?
probably the exact same as normal macuahuitl. Are we talking like diamond shard duct taped to a steel sword? or a executioner sword with diamond shards in the metal? cuz if so exact same as macuahuitl for the latter, and for the former a bad cut that would leave shards and you still have a steel sword. that would be what i would think at least with my very VERY limited knowledge of materials in combat
You forgot to mention medical blades such as scalpels are often laced with diamond for the extremely sharp cut edge (ofc, not designed for battle impact but you get the idea). One could make a multimaterial design that uses diamond just on the edge of the blade, while maintaining a steel core (much like the katana does, only with high carbon steel instead of diamond).
Somewhat related, I remember watching a program (from about the 1960s) it was one of these action/spy kind of shows but at one point the villain meets with an assassin/mercenary (he's described as both) who uses bullets made from "100% pure diamond" with his reasoning being that "it will go through any armour that can be worn" while the expense of such a round can be explained by the fact he owned his own diamond mine, I do also wonder whether diamond bullets would actually work or whether its just the kind of fluff that made for television back then.
I think you can look at ceramic blades as those are quite easy to find. These are extremely hard, can be incredibly sharp and has fantastic edge retention. But they are also very prone to chipping and breaking. A blade made of diamond would be quite similar in it's properties. I have had several ceramic kitchen knives, but they tend to break so there's only one left now. And that one has a few chips taken out of the edge so I never use it. I even got a special diamond sharpener for the knives, but they tended to break before they needed sharpening... Still, I think they are pretty neat, much like a party trick. But for daily use they are not really worth it.
Now a days there are methods to apply a thin layer of diamond to a surface. I have seen descriptions in terms of protecting the surface. I expect that applying it to the edge of a sword would give it a finer and harder edge. I don't know how robust it would be.
Warning, meandering thoughts. If you were to make a weapon with diamonds as the cutting edge, I'd not use diamond diamonds, but use bort. Bort is diamond but has a slightly different crystal structure and is more likely to have inclusions. Its slightly less hard that diamond but you might gain a little toughness, not much but some is better than none. Anyways, there are many other stones that would make for interesting fantasy weapons that are "tougher". From what i know about cabbing and faciting jade is often noted as just as difficult to cut as diamond, though this is because of the nature of the crystals being more like interweaving fibers going every which way with hard and soft directions in the stone. If someone really wanted to make a gemstone sword, theyd probably want something that has no perfect clevages (see fluorite and calcite for examples) and has a fiberous crystal structure that forms in masses that have those crystals overlapping each other at irregular angels and directions. Or something more granular so there are no possible angels of cleaving. It'd qlso need decebt hardness too, as a rule of thumb for making jewlery, stones need to be fairly hard, ideally 7 or greater (7, is the hardness of quartz, steel measures in at 4), and something that is has some heat and shock resistance, it just makes the manufacturing side of it easier, if it doesnt, youd run the risk of working it and it getting too hot and fracturing and splitting, or hitting it just right and shattering. No stone is gonna have enough elastic flexibility, so magic that grabted that atribute would be a must. Random aside, glass, abd by extention obsidian lack any crystal structure. There are other stones that are also like that, opal for example.
I think the point notch wanted to have with diamond and gold swords is that at some point post release minecraft he would have improved on their magic functionality given the game's magic system.
Sooo - a club with poisonous glass (Or other hard material) points (Mace like) intended to break off and stay in a wound. Could also apply that tech to staff weapons if you were trained not to hold the end sections. Maybe more hassle than value but an interesting idea in a fantasy setting. I imagine that if you even blocked a hard blow 'overhead' or in front of your face you might find splinters of poisonous material spraying into your face. It would certainly make opponents more cautious of the blunt weapon.
I put a 🔨 to a small diamond once. It stood-up to it about as well as a little piece of normal glass would. It was mostly dust. Actually... it was an engagement ring with 4 or 6 in it. If you think I'm kidding I can show you the twisted gold ring. Love is grand 😃 ain't it?
If the macuhuitl is not effective for swinging, what about using it as a cutting weapon similar to a saw? The wood would obviously stop an effective chop but if you could thrust it past a guard and then draw it against an unarmored area it might be more effective?
To make aeroplane jet engine propellers, they make a single crystal of iron grow into that massive shape so it has no weak spots. I saw this on a documentary years ago so I hope I got that right. But when you mentioned crystals it made me wonder if there might be any benefit of making a sword that way or if it would have downsides...
You should see the only one remaining flint sword I can't spell 😃 a museum thought it was fake because it was paired with a samurai suit in Victorian times. They didn't realize it was an original, it was so very slender. Your paddle example may just be how it was drawn. Delicate features in life are often simple stylized representations in art.
You can actually take the diamond attached to the core weapon further. They make scalpels where the edge is basically covered in diamond dust. You could do that to a sword but I'm not sure how long term it would be even if the sword doesn't break in any way the dust will be ground away at some point.
Itsmy understanding that obsidian scalpels are also quite common
@@highlandoutsider I've heard of those too but aren't they an obsidian fragment unlike the diamond variant?
@@foxtroika1698 yeah I believe they are ultra sharp fragments and not a coating like the diamonds 👍
The diamond-dust idea would work very poorly, as all the diamond would be gone after the first sharpening, and surface particles like that are really only effective as abrasives, anyway, which isn't going to be particularly helpful for a sword. Diamond would make a good surface coating on the flats (reduced friction, corrosion, etc) and possibly a decent-but-not-ideal reinforcement in a metal matrix composite edge, but anything else is the domain of stuff like disposable razor blades and drill bits.
@@irrelevantfish1978diamonds would actually make for much better clubs than edged weapons. While it is true that diamonds have what is called ‘perfect cleavage’ (insert Dolly Parton joke here) they can be cut and polished in such a way that force applied directly into the point of the diamond will not break it.
You can imbed a faceted diamond (culet side down) using percussive force into a steel block without damaging the diamond. As a bench jeweler I’ve done it many times.
Diamonds are much tougher than given credit as long as they’re not hit along their cleavage planes. Of course, as the crystals get larger, the likelihood of striking it on a cleavage plane increases. So you definitely wouldn’t want to use one for a war pick. But smaller stone sizes would easily go through steel armor. The problem is, they’d be so small that their capacity for penetration into what’s underneath the armor (ie human body) would be negligible. On bare flesh, they’d give you a nasty scratch or a superficial puncture hole. Where they’d shine (pun intended) would be for thin bone demolition. Multiple diamond points driven into a skull should serve to drastically weaken the structure making it easier to splinter and shatter the skull.
Wow, I haven't seen Tobuscus in a hot minute.
Oh dear God where do I start?
@@abstrusepaladin it’s a rabbit whole, are you sure you wanna go down it???
@@wailingbridge3872 Not again, no.
Start with mini Minotaur. I call that song “the solution”. Listen to it every time you have a song stuck in your head and it will guarantee remove it without replacing it.
TOBUSCUS!! DO-DO-DO-DO-DO SUBSCRIBE!!
Archaeologists finding a skeleton with shards of obsidian embedded in its bones: "Gee, I wish they used diamond swords instead, I'd be rich"
My biggest problem with diamond as a sword material is actually the cleavage planes found in the crystal. There's a few angles where if you give diamond a good whack it break clean in two, and the force to do that isn't even that high. This is actually how jewelers cut diamonds into the shape that they are.
yes, we learned that from the inspector gadget cartoon.
Pretty good, but partially inaccurate. Diamond has 4 cleavage planes (parallel to the crystal faces).
Jewellers don’t cleave diamonds (at least not on purpose). Jewellers are people who make/repair/sell jewelry.
Those who cut and polish gemstones other than diamond are called lapidaries.
Diamond cutters are those who rough out the diamond crystals into the desired shapes and give them the final polish.
Cleaving used to be a method for splitting diamond crystals, but it is inconsistent and possibly destructive.
Diamond coated disc saws and then later on lasers are the preferred method for removing sections of the crystals.
*heh heh* cleavage
@D G, my guess is that you are talking about different stages of the processing.
@D G, if it comes first, does it mean there are other stages?
Every single cut done at diamonds are done by cleaving?
It's funny because when I was a teenager I thought hardness was the sole aspect to define how "good" something like a blade or a piece of armor would be and I thought "holy cow, maybe a sword and plate armour made of Chromium would be super tough"... how wrong I was when I learned about the brittleness of "super"-hard materials xD
well you werent entirely wrong (atleast about the armor bit) ceramic plates (superhard and brittle) are used in some ballistic body armor. Usually combined with kevlar or some other woven armor behind it to catch the fragments
@@dom7899 They do become unusable and require replacement after too much gunfire tho.
@@st.haborym yep i know, once a ceramic plate is hit if you happened to get shot there again gl. doesnt change the fact that they exist though and are in use. Even if you wear ballistic armor the goal is still to not get shot in the first place, the plate is there to protect most vitals on the off chance you do.
@@dom7899 Two words: ghille suit
@@st.haborym I mean, a ghillie suit is not armour. It's camouflage. It's either worn without armour or alongside it, but cannot be put into the same category.
What a GEM of a video. Oh and first time one your videos got recommended to me so quickly, awesome awesome.
I think the reason the Macuahuitl didn't really perform that well because it wasn't made too accurately. Often you see them in depictions with chunky knapped pieces but this wasn't the case. They actually used prismatic blades, which are extremely thin and sharp but really hard to make. The blade portions are usually long flakes cracked from a big block (the prism) You mentioned tapering of the club portion, which is actually how a lot of them were made, tapered toward the edges like a sword. I remember a source saying there was distal taper in a Macuahuitl but I can't remember if it was pre-columbian or not.
Scishow made a video about how the sharpest edge in the world was made and it can't cut anything. Thought we might get that as the video this week.
Yeah, people didn't go to war with poorly made weapons if they could help it. These folks didn't do football, war was as much a way of showing off and having fun as it was about politics, power and religion. So a well off warrior would definitely have something nice to swing around.
While both of you have made some good points.
1. A well made glass obsidian is still going to shatter and break off into the flesh.
2. These cheaply looking wooden clubs where still the best they had to offer in the terms of weapons.
2.a They did have access to schinopsis balansae. A tree whose wood is 4,570 lbf. In laymans terms that is really hard wood.
So why does Skalagrims citations looks crude? Well, maybe because people do not go to war with weapons that are expensive. When you need a large number of warriors you need to be able to supply them all with weapons that are only good enough. If these people had armor they would have learned that obsidian is next to useless against it. Like they did when they fought the Spanish.
Even in todays standards our weapons are made by the lowest bidder. Military contracts, still pay out big time. But they have to ask for the cheapest they can get at their standard. It is why colt makes M16 rifle. And Armalite does not make the M16. Even though Armalite are the orignal designers of the M16.
@@xPumaFangx If anything, these people did have textile armour(which even among Europeans was far more common then metal armour when you count the gambeson people wore underneath metal armour) and the wooden clubs(even if inexpensively made)were well made(if only because the crafts men were skilled and poorly made weapons are very undesirable) and only stopped being used do to the sheer effectiveness steel armour and arms has in countering glass weapons.
@@xPumaFangx whoa hold on here what do you mean "both of us"? Your comment here is only responding to the guy who responded to me. I was making a SPECIFIC reference to Skall's SPECIFIC Machuahuitl. Nothing about it not shattering (in fact, prismatic blades are even more likely to shatter into the wounds). Nothing even about ancient blades. However, your assertion that maybe this was the "cheap version" like a commoners weapon, or that it was produced quickly. It was not. The point of my comment was actually that it's the opposite; these weren't just cheap clubs. I said what I said because both the archaeological evidence and the native peoples have said that the Machuahuitl uses prismatic blades. His version is inaccurate and not made well, which is why it didn't hold up as well or worked as intended. We know that chunky blades on these weapons only happened after colonization, and is the byproduct of their biases (i.e. look at this thing it's barely functional and it's their elite weapon, no wonder they were conquered type of attitude)
@Indrid Cold what the hell are you on about? Tf does this have to do with anything? Also literally doesn't apply to the Aztecs considering the many things they invented/built/made so I'm super confused?
Thank goodness somebody finally said this. Yes, diamonds are very, very hard, but they're susceptible to fracturing when under pressure and with enough blunt force. A diamond sword might as well be made of glass for all the good it will do.
Yup, same, but opposite of why "golden sword" is such a hilariously bad idea.
@@DIREWOLFx75 In fairness, gold tools are very short lived in Minecraft, maybe even worse than real life. They're almost 8x shorter lived than iron tools, and even half as durable as wood.
"Thank goodness somebody finally said this." Yes, because this is the first time someone has ever covered the topic of "why not diamond sword?" on the Internet.
@@md_vandenberg There's always somebody that has to be an ass.....
@@DIREWOLFx75hey im not familiar with materials at all, could you elaborate?
im assuming you mean that gold would be very soft but flexible? like the bronze example in the vid itd just bend much quicker?
I have a synthetic ruby edged leatherworking tool, with the ruby edge set into brass. I could see that a bronze sword could similarly have an edge of ruby, sapphire or even diamond, but ruby is likely tougher and easier to grind to a razor edge, while still being harder than almost any steel.
It would be a very pretty blade too.
That long answer joke will never get old 😂
Used to have an obsidian knife,and what I figured was granite (yardrock) that I fashioned into kinda a santoku profile knife myself.
Both met there end from people just being a little bit careless with ceramic plates in the dish sink. The obsidian knife was let go into the water and cracked on contact with a plate from maybe 6 inches at most of a fall through water. And the granite chefknife had a plate come into the water ontop of it. Thats my experience with stone knives durability.
Were defeated by clay technology 🤔
What you said about somehow binding diamond into a steel sword blade to make its cutting edge up is basically *exactly* how I figured a diamond blade might be done realistically.
Everyone seems to think that diamonds are *indestructible* , which's probably what lead them to think it'd be a good material to make a sword out of; but it's *not* because like you said, the *harder* something is, the better it can retain a sharp edge, but the more *brittle* it is too.
Also, it's nice that someone *else* recognizes that the diamond scarcity is an *artificial* one meant to keep their prices jacked up higher than most people can afford; all you have to do to make one is take a lump of something rich in carbon, like coal, and pressurize it for however long it takes to transform it. If we did that with all the coal we have in this country, diamonds would be so *abundant* that they'd be basically *worthless* .
You're on the internet. Diamonds being an artificial economy is almost as big a meme as the hardest material in the world thing. A lot of people do actually know.
@@benedict6962 I see; thanks for letting me know.
While _natural_ diamond's price is inflated, _synthetic_ diamond's isn't. Yes, carbon is cheap, but the equipment and energy required to turn it into diamond really ain't. To quote Wikipedia: "The original method [of making diamond] uses high pressure and high temperature (HPHT) and is still widely used because of its relatively low cost. The process involves large presses that can weigh hundreds of tons to produce a pressure of 5 GPa (730,000 psi) at 1,500 °C (2,730 °F)."
@@irrelevantfish1978 *woah* ; I don't know how many atmospheres of pressure that is, but that's a little over *thrice* the temperature of the surface of *Venus* !
@@ezrafaulk3076 It's about 50,000atm, which is roughly 5x higher than needed to squeeze a sword blade until it cracks.
Needless to say, building equipment that can generate that kind of pressure without self-destructing is a bit tricky. 😉
Synthetic diamonds are commonly used in drill bits for deep drilling. Would love to hear from someone who uses them regularly on their tolerances and draw backs. In the meantime I'll keep working away on my war drill.
There is also natural industrial diamonds but I think those sorts of drill bits tend to be grinding rather than cutting tools. Various masonry tools are like that.
Those tend to be tiny diamond abrasives mixed in with tungsten carbide to improve the latter's wear properties. (in part to reduce wear, in part to cause the drill tip to wear unevenly so it self-sharpens.)
They’re used for drilling many hard things. You can go to your local hardware store and chances are you can buy drill bits or sets of different shaped burs that are coated in diamond crystals. Even needle files. Think sandpaper.
And just like regular sandpaper, they will wear down eventually. The sharp pointy crystals will chip, gradually reducing their effectiveness. Also they can clog easily if the proper lubrication isn’t used when grinding softer materials.
I used to cut and core drill concrete, everything is tipped with rectangles of diamond/soft metal rectangles. They are designed so that the metal wears away while cutting and new diamonds are exposed. The problem was that if you hit something hard and not abrasive, like large rebar, you could wind up polishing the edge to where it doesn't cut; until you run it through something abrasive like brick. And this is on everything from 8ft circular blades to the chainsaw ones.
Diamond is too fragile. Had a science proffessor basically tell me that if the pieces get any bigger than a small pebble then the pieces have a high risk of cracking. Basically it's too fragile, more akin to glass is how he described it. When used as an abrasive it shows it's hardness but when you crash and smack it it breaks.
This topic seems to put Skal in alot of PRESSURE
😠 Take your upvote and leave. 😄
@@JasonMBroyles like*
Haven't watched this yet, but I love the fact you've done it cause I know it's gonna be hilarious at some point.
So, the lesson I'm getting here, is that the Macuahuitl is almost a one-shot weapon. It will rightly _end_ the first guy you land a solid blow on assuming he's not wearing steel armor, but you're going to be doing _severe_ damage to your sword (actually it's kind of a saw, kind of a club thing?) in the process, greatly reducing its effectiveness. The next blow, in the same spot, might not have _any_ obsidian shards worth mentioning, so you have to reverse is to get in that second shot, but now _that_ side is wrecked too, so your third hit will have to be with a less-optimal part of the blade, closer to your hand, and before long, if you're still up, you are fighting with a very clunky club that might still have a few jagged or pokey bits sticking out of it.
And if you are fighting an actual man rather than a target dummy or water bottle, the man would raise a shield or weapon so your macuahuitl loses its edge without even contacting flesh.
There is a good reason nations that mastered metal conquered most of the world while those still messing around with wood and stone fell into the history books......
You know, in the old Star Wars comics from the 90s, the ones by Tom Veitch and Kevin J. Anderson, the Jedi used kyber crystal swords before they invented lightsabers. This kind of reminded me of that.
0:42
Not anymore.
I don't exactly remember the details, but they did recently discover a small deposit of carbon in a form that was stronger than diamond(different type of structure).
a fun note with minecraft's diamonds is that they were likely inspired by dwarf fortress's adamantine, which in turn took direct inspiration from tolkien's mithril.
both adamantine in dwarf fortress and diamonds in minecraft are incredibly durable, light blue materials found very deep in the earth, with a propensity for being found near lava (or, more accurately, magma), and the original creator of minecraft has stated that he took a fair bit of inspiration from dwarf fortress in the game's early design.
This is the first Skall video to show up in my notifications in ages...Awesome. I missed these videos.
Yeah, the hardness scale (or mohs scale) is often confused with durability when the former is purely how hard it is to scratch. Because of this difference, many tools use sapphire and ruby as they are a 9 in hardness yet much more durable than diamond allowing them to be used as industrial abrasives. Similarly, diamond would be more useful in drilling/grinding role than any kind of precursive impact.
Between you and Shad, we could end up with a blade that has a carbon fiber core and a diamond edge. Sounds pretty cool ngl.
Its like Notch heard at school "diamond is the hardest material" and immediately stopped paying attention to what that actually meant.
That topic makes me think of cross-country ski poles. Good ones are made of carbon fibers, which makes them extremely light and extremely rigid, which is good for competition because it means that you have less weight to lift and a bigger proportion of your upper body's strength gets transmitted to the ground. The downside is that they aren't elastic at all and break very easily.
Have you made any videos explaining the differences from one kind of steel to another? You mention them often, and I'd love to know more of the specifics about why each one is used for its own specific purposes.
Also, the short answer/long answer joke is a favorite of mine, and I was happy to see it used again.
might not be exactly what you're after but... skall vid: th-cam.com/video/zgo_H-YpHq0/w-d-xo.html
@@sharpestbulb Thanks!
I've never been this early for a scolding of fantasy tropes!
shouldn't there be no /h/ sound there in macuahuitl? is how they spelled /w/ as far as I know
Another great one Skall!👍 Keep it coming
The dark elf Drizzt Do'Urden from R.A. Salvatore's D&D books has a shamshir scimitar called Icingdeath made of steel, with a diamond-coated edge. The implication is that ground-up diamond dust lines the edge to facilitate cutting, without risking fracturing.
And there are modern day bullets made of sintered metals, non-lead non-metals, and polymers, which are designed to be hard enough to damage soft tissue, but to break apart into dust when they hit walls or glass. They are popular when shooting steel targets.
1:34
I use this Phrase as a shameless pun for my question.
How effective do you all think are the weapons of the four Yonko (four emperors) in One Piece corresponding to their fighting styles? I mean the four Yonko Whitebeard, Shanks, big mom and Kaido.
Would there be more effective weapons for their particular fighting styles? (i know all of their weapons are super powerful or even legendary for the first two mentioned characters.)
Big mom is a Wildcard here due to having 3 Main "weapons". Here i would ask are the choosen elements of fire and lightning the most effective? Or would maybe water, lightning and a pistol be more powerful?
You’ve just given me a grate idea for a blood ranger magic weapon, cheers
We use diamond coated cutting tools sometimes when milling soft metals like aluminium or copper. While more expensive than regular carbide tools, they last a lot longer.
There is some recent development on CVD (chemical vapor deposition) diamond coatings on substrates that survive more than 800°C. This process would destroy the heat treatment of normal spring steel, but maybe one finds an alloy that could work under these conditions. It would still just be a coating, but it would create a diamond edge (similar to other modern hard coatings on tools, just a little thicker).
Here's a video topic for you: In Raymond Feist's Midkemia novels there are a people called the Tsurani. They come from a metal poor world. Thus most of what they make is from wood. They wear wooden armor, albeit from trees not found in our world. Does wood make effective armor?
I actually think Skall did this one a WHILE back if you want to dig through the archives. The TLDR is; kind of. Shields are effectively wooden armor, but a wooden suit you step into makes less sense.
That's a good question. I remember they had lacquered wood that was layered in such a way that made it flexible but tough.
Some samurai armor was layered paper, which would very much be possible in such a world.
This guy has done lots of good work on wooden armour: www.youtube.com/@MalcolmPL
Something of significant interest I think is worth looking into are Diamond drills and saw blades. Both seem to have quite significant toughness (high rpm/energy contact) but are used for the high hardness.
Modern technology is pretty incredible; it might not look like you’d imagine a Diamond blade, but I’d bet there’s something workable there.
The metal holding the diamonds on blades and bits is relatively softer and designed to wear away as it cuts the abrasive concrete, exposing new diamonds to cut. Hitting a large piece of rebar could actually polish the cutting surface smooth and it wouldn't cut anymore.
I have some knowledge of exotic high-hardness steels sometimes used in high-performance knives. (Most of the steels were developed for other applications but can be “tuned” to create extremely high performance knife steels).
In regards to hardness, the steels I’m referring to range from 62 to 70+ hrc.
(52100, S60V, K390, Maxamet, Rex45/M4/Hap40, Rex121, for just a few examples). Each steel also has a potential range of attainable hardness.
Their very high hardness give them a lot of strength to hold very thin edge geometries without deforming (0.005 behind the cutting edge bevel thickness, for example).
These knives are very specialized in use and only for experienced users.
The hardest large-sized knives I’m aware of are custom competition choppers which I think you can find as high as ~62-65 hrc (CPM4V and M4 are common as I understand it), but again, their geometries and heat treats are very specialized and not suitable for swords.
Some ceramics have a degree of flexibility, but those are still very new to the knife world and I don’t think they would work well without significant modification, nor provide much advantage over typical sword steels.
I think there’s an idea that extremely hard = a sword that can cut anything, but that is not the case. Even a hypothetical diamond sword that is as strong and tough as steel would not magically be able to cut anything better.
It is the geometry that cuts and it’s about pulling the full potential out of materials to support the needed geometry. Geometry also typically plays a much bigger role in the durability of the actual edge than material, at least to an extent. (Copper and steel are worlds apart and that was evident in this video).
The point is that a sword would still need sword-like cutting geometry and the typical materials used to make them work just fine for that, so there is no point to extremely hard swords. They offer no practical advantage.
I’ve seen some pretty interesting developments in titanium alloy swords, though. To me, that is where people should be looking if they are curious about exotic blade materials relevant to swords.
I recommend looking into Larrin Thomas of “KnifeSteelNerds” as well as his book if anyone is interested in some technical reading.
At my job we use diamond tools. What they are is a standard tungsten carbide end mill coated in a fine coating of diamond dust and adhesive. The diamonds are "pre shattered" in the form of dust and you still get the effects of their hardness. We use it for some seriously abrasive jobs like cutting PVC plastic and carbon fiber
I found a video out of England, where a material scientist talked about different grade steels, and there uses in knife making. I think i is easy to confuse toughness and strength.
Still in love with that longsword katana thing
Great video Skal! Diamond weapons in general would be a great video topic. Could you make diamond arrowheads, for example? I feel like you could get away with the diamond being so brittle, since arrowheads are disposable and have a one-time use.
From what I have heard, well-made Machuahuitl have long straight flakes of obsidian that are not flintknapped but cleaved off. They are removed from larger pieces of very pure obsidian with an edge that is already sharp and close to perfectly straight, and are considerably sharper than what is possible with metal.
Many tests with more crude flintknapped or spiked versions show it behaving more like a club, but the best historical examples had long, near-atomically smooth blades and could cut quite effectively. The Spanish considered the weapons to be a type of sword.
That opening video gave my nostalgia whiplash
I remember reading an article from at least 10 years ago about a process of applying a diamond coating on drill bits via lasers. Doing that with a steel sword seems like it would produce a better "diamond sword".
In terms of fantasy diamond swords and price of diamonds. I think in many of the fantasy settings with magic spells you could probably use a spell that could generate and sustain the conditions we use for making synthetic diamonds as well.
Those drills do more grinding than cutting, so it is a different ball park.
As someone who lives in the Yucatan among Mayans, they've told me that the "l" in certain words like Macuahuitl is not silent, instead you stick your tongue out a little when making the "l" sound. It's difficult, but the natives can do it consistently since some people here still speak Mayan.
Interesting that you bring up composite construction with hard crystals embedded in a ductile matrix-- because heat treated steel is exactly such a composite in its molecular microstructure, with hard but brittle carbides suspended in a ductile ferrous matrix. Different heat treating protocols can alter the volume, size, and distribution of carbide crystals, thus resulting in a different balance of physical properties of the steel.
Essentially the thing that no one gets about a mineral's "hardness" or "softness" according to the Mohs scale is that it's *not* based on how difficult it is to *break.* It is based on how difficult it is to *scratch the smooth surface of,* and that's why diamond just makes no sense as a sword even when everyone thinks that it does.
This brings the sword Tinkledeath from the Inheritance Cycle to mind. Angela, the current wielder, says it's made of diamond, but it bends more than any other blade that main character Eragon has ever seen before. This makes me think that the blade is made of graphene, not normal diamond.
Re: you could make a Machuahuitl with diamond?
You could make one that was knapped. But with bronze age technology available to the Aztecs (i.e. no laser cutters or lab-grown diamonds), I doubt you could make that perfectly sharp blade you get with obsidian. It would be this nasty edge you see in flintknapped or stone pseudo-Machuahuitls. Diamond does not produce natural atomically-sharp flakes the way obsidian does, and in some ways wide availability of diamond instead of obsidian would probably push people to just not bother and use copper blades. Something the Aztecs did have, as they used them as money.
I see pcd used in CNC machining where The main tool is a steel piece and the pcd is a coating which is not so dissimilar to the idea of a hard jacket and soft core. Usually those tools are insanely expensive so I don't see them in wide scale or large tools very much. But if there's any hope it would be something like that. Maybe not as a combat weapon but could make for a good kitchen knife perhaps.
you may have done the short answer long answer bit before but its funny every time
Been a viewer for years, and now I’ve bought my first sword
What about diamond impregnation? You just make an ordinary good quality steel sword but the cutting edge will be similar to the edges of diamond drill bits, where diamond particles are mixed with a powdered metal matrix such as nickel, cobalt, or tungsten carbide. The mixture is then pressed into the desired shape around the steel core of the sword and heated to a high temperature to bond the metal matrix to the diamond particles. That will " I guess "allow much better edge retention. Maybe finally katanas will cut tanks on the fly :D
TLDR: that produces a "super sandpaper", not a "super cutting edge".
That's a grinding / abrasion cut, not a proper slice. "Diamond tipped" drill bits and saw blades get edge damage and deformations just as much as the metal the diamond is suspended in. In my experience tungsten carbide (drill bits, saw blades & grinders) is prone to shattering, while "diamond steel" sharpeners pick up knicks and burrs the same way as any other sharpening steel (they show it worse - big scratches on the blade from tiny knicks in the abrasive steel)
Diamond powder doesn't improve the structural strength of the base metal holding it. Diamond saws cut with spinning/sawing both because diamond powder excels at friction cuts, and because if you actually swung it you'd waste a lot of diamond impregnated material for not much cutting done.
A sandblaster modified to fire diamond dust though, that'll shred a lot of things.
One thing to note is we can actually make Diamonds in any shape Out of human Ashes AKA Carbon. I think they could make Diamond Daggers with a certain Thickness and it could work. Go look at Diamonds being pressed by a compressor, They actually Dented and ruined equipment. So maybe it could be possible to have diamond weapons of some magnitude and them to be Created in any shape including arrows.
The issue with the Macuahuitl stopping in a wound because of the wood reminds me a reason why a forge which decided to make a warhammer 40k chainsword found. It will only go as deep as the length of the blades since the weapon's body is so much larger.
Tobuscus! Loved that reference. ❤️
Awesome video Skall.. had an idea for a video. Maybe you could discuss weapons made out of railroad spikes. They have low carbon content, but smiths still make knives and hatchets out of them. Would love to see you break it down.
what is the sword from 2:16 to 3:05 it looks very nice and i want to know if it can be bought.
Maybe (if we are in scifi fantasy world) you would like the mono-molecular blade. It was used for example in book A lord from planet Earth from Sergey Lukyanenko. It was described there as one layer of some metal. It was entraped in some kind of magnetic field. The swordsman had to engage the autosharpening procedure every few swing through air, because the blade was blunted by air too. And it was really not durable. It was something like snap-off sword (more like chip-off).
i gotta say that katana shaped longsword is fucking gorgeous
I'm with you on the point of how brittle diamond-blade weapons would be. I'd be curious about your opinion regarding diamond-tipped arrows.
I can feel the nostalgia flooding my brain and veins
wear better eye protection next time you test that weapon Skall. I agree its more a mace, after getting the glass into the skin they probably beat up their opponents into submission or death with the wood. Maybe their pijama looking clothing was made with that weapon in mind as well I can see how the obsidian weapons could get stuck if they do glancing slashes towards that type of clothes.
I have a question. Why the Romans stopped using the Pilum?
They used actual purpose built spears, spatha, and war darts. The switch over was massive population loss due to plague and civil war thus the late Roman army couldn’t just eat losses and keep going this the romans soldier had to be less aggressive and more versatile cus late roman army had to defend borders and fight organized kingdoms and empires more.
@How Ridiculous did some crazy stuff to a diamond. I forget what it was exactly, but it was equivalent to putting it on an anvil and hitting it with a sledgehammer. It got stuck int he hammer.(Or whatever steel thing it was, I forget.)
They're less brittle than you might think!
"People still ask for this" I refuse to believe people who are asking are that ignorant. Diamond is literally just a glass made of pure carbon.
They just want Skall to roast/take on the idea in detailed manner.
Не стакло,угаљ.Образуј се мало.
@@dusanradin5868 но ведь он сказал "стекло из чистого углерода"?
It is not glass.
Glass is defined by it's amorphous, non-crystalline structure, literally the opposite from any actual mineral (such as diamond).
That's like saying "a stick is just a sword made from wood".
you're confusing diamond with obsidian
@@NameNameson840 Нет.Колико ја знам стакло нема неке везе са дијамантима,а разлика у дијамантима у угљу је само у једном атому.Одакле му то да је стакло чист углјеник....добро ја ћу први признати да сам дудук за Мендељејеву таблицу.
Some materials, including some diamond-based abrasives, are self-sharpening. Simple summary: as some of the particles in the matrix get worn down, torn off, and/or broken they break and grind nearby material to be sharper. Note, this happens on a nano-scale usually with things like nano-particles in the matrix so really its not that much wearing down. You could coat sword in this for cutting. Or could make a club like bat with this if you use coarser particles not meant for cutting but for grinding. Harder material tends to transmit force better, so slightly better damage on club, and any drag along surface might lead nasty scrap like sandpaper but worse (however penetration low). Additionally, for club it would make more durable and focus impact slightly more during first contact.
Ending on a pun, very good
To be fair... granite slabs are cut in quarries using chainsaws that have diamond carbide teeth. Of course, the teeth chains have to be changed out every so often and the chainsaw blade has to be kept water-cooled, but it's how they do it.
I’d love to see your take on the weapons from M.A.R. Barker’s Empire of the Petal Throne books set on the world of Tekumel where metals are scarce and some unique replacements were developed.
So, in materials engineering there’s a way to make a single crystal casting, meaning you could technically cast a single diamond crystal making it’s structure far more ductile and strong and thus far less likely to break. You could also make a much thicker profile whilst still being extremely sharp. New technology is great!
In anticipation universes there are some solution for that diamond blade thingy:
In Cyberpunk there are sword with diamond monomomolecular thick blade edge cutting through anything like hot knife into butter. The blade being so brittle, it is totally interchangeable. edge is busted because you slayed a guy in its metal gear armor? No problem! Unscrew the blade edge or blade edge segments that are damaged, replace that by new one(s) and you're good to go!
In Shadowrun there are dikoted blades, the blade is reinforced by a deposited layer of synthetic diamond, turning it into a deadly sharp and hard weapon, able to slice easier.
Can you make a video about fighting with fresh fruit?
Even if it would be a weapon with a hard limit of uses, a diamond macuahuitl would still be incredibly dangerous to encounter. The diamonds surely would shatter, but that's exactly what's so dangerous. It's not just the initial cut, but the additional damage of sharp shards being released into the wound grinding slowly deeper into your flesh with each move you make.
I feel like it could potentially work,
Skal, remember, when you talked about that wooden core from the Bronze Age that actually had Flint inserts to form a sword?
That’s the only way I could see a diamond sword working, or like a Macahuitl
Update :
I posted this comment before I saw him do that Macahuitl test
So what about polymer resin sword? Add a bit of reflective material and stuff and it could look like a diamond sword
Sounds like the glass sword in Crypt of the Necormancer would be a good way to implement a diamond weapon (albiet glass in this case).
The sword does about 4 times regular damage, but it breaks the first time you use it.
That No at the start of the video sounded like my dad when I asked him to play Minecraft when he was playing.
Without wanting to sound arrogant, asking yourself the question speaks volumes about your basic knowledge of Physics.
Which is why I find Skall's short and long answer appropriate. With a benevolent wink of course.
My dudes intro tho 🤣🤣🤣👍
Skiallagrim: The issue is that Diamond is only strong in one direction, if you hit diamond in the opposite direction "It will shatter, like glass". The only way to Strenthen Diamond is to somehow fuse diamond with sheets of diamond in opposite directions. The problem is that diamonds, and Magnets likes to have poles. Making a diamond that is both Horizontal, and Vertical is hard to fuse, because the Crystals will move in the same direction. If you could turn Diamonds into a carbon fiber like structure, then its possible to make a diamond Sword.
When they make artificial diamonds. they certainly can put some armature inside. But if the armature is made of carbon too, it would turn into diamond as well.
I was big into diamond swords in middle school/ highschool. a very long time ago.
Hey Skal, I’m a blacksmith and have had an idea floating in my head for a “Sword breaker” longsword or arming sword. Do you think it could be practical or do you think the potential cons outweigh the pros?
On the topic of the Macuahuitl. Could you in effect make a steel/diamond variant? In essence forge a steel sword with a gap to fasten in segments of diamond edge? How would something like that fare in combat?
probably the exact same as normal macuahuitl. Are we talking like diamond shard duct taped to a steel sword? or a executioner sword with diamond shards in the metal? cuz if so exact same as macuahuitl for the latter, and for the former a bad cut that would leave shards and you still have a steel sword. that would be what i would think at least with my very VERY limited knowledge of materials in combat
Obsidian sounds like those swords so thin they can cut through anything
You forgot to mention medical blades such as scalpels are often laced with diamond for the extremely sharp cut edge (ofc, not designed for battle impact but you get the idea). One could make a multimaterial design that uses diamond just on the edge of the blade, while maintaining a steel core (much like the katana does, only with high carbon steel instead of diamond).
Diamond blades could be used for ceremonial purposes, or just as a status symbol.
In that case, I find them plausible.
Somewhat related, I remember watching a program (from about the 1960s) it was one of these action/spy kind of shows but at one point the villain meets with an assassin/mercenary (he's described as both) who uses bullets made from "100% pure diamond" with his reasoning being that "it will go through any armour that can be worn" while the expense of such a round can be explained by the fact he owned his own diamond mine, I do also wonder whether diamond bullets would actually work or whether its just the kind of fluff that made for television back then.
I think you can look at ceramic blades as those are quite easy to find. These are extremely hard, can be incredibly sharp and has fantastic edge retention. But they are also very prone to chipping and breaking. A blade made of diamond would be quite similar in it's properties.
I have had several ceramic kitchen knives, but they tend to break so there's only one left now. And that one has a few chips taken out of the edge so I never use it. I even got a special diamond sharpener for the knives, but they tended to break before they needed sharpening...
Still, I think they are pretty neat, much like a party trick. But for daily use they are not really worth it.
The Dodo recently had a video of a couple of dog owners sword fighting with their dog, you should check it out sometime when you get a chance.
Now a days there are methods to apply a thin layer of diamond to a surface. I have seen descriptions in terms of protecting the surface. I expect that applying it to the edge of a sword would give it a finer and harder edge. I don't know how robust it would be.
Warning, meandering thoughts.
If you were to make a weapon with diamonds as the cutting edge, I'd not use diamond diamonds, but use bort. Bort is diamond but has a slightly different crystal structure and is more likely to have inclusions. Its slightly less hard that diamond but you might gain a little toughness, not much but some is better than none. Anyways, there are many other stones that would make for interesting fantasy weapons that are "tougher". From what i know about cabbing and faciting jade is often noted as just as difficult to cut as diamond, though this is because of the nature of the crystals being more like interweaving fibers going every which way with hard and soft directions in the stone. If someone really wanted to make a gemstone sword, theyd probably want something that has no perfect clevages (see fluorite and calcite for examples) and has a fiberous crystal structure that forms in masses that have those crystals overlapping each other at irregular angels and directions. Or something more granular so there are no possible angels of cleaving. It'd qlso need decebt hardness too, as a rule of thumb for making jewlery, stones need to be fairly hard, ideally 7 or greater (7, is the hardness of quartz, steel measures in at 4), and something that is has some heat and shock resistance, it just makes the manufacturing side of it easier, if it doesnt, youd run the risk of working it and it getting too hot and fracturing and splitting, or hitting it just right and shattering. No stone is gonna have enough elastic flexibility, so magic that grabted that atribute would be a must.
Random aside, glass, abd by extention obsidian lack any crystal structure. There are other stones that are also like that, opal for example.
3:09 Unrelated but what kind of sword is that?
I think the point notch wanted to have with diamond and gold swords is that at some point post release minecraft
he would have improved on their magic functionality given the game's magic system.
Sooo - a club with poisonous glass (Or other hard material) points (Mace like) intended to break off and stay in a wound. Could also apply that tech to staff weapons if you were trained not to hold the end sections. Maybe more hassle than value but an interesting idea in a fantasy setting. I imagine that if you even blocked a hard blow 'overhead' or in front of your face you might find splinters of poisonous material spraying into your face. It would certainly make opponents more cautious of the blunt weapon.
May be effective but it would wear out quickly.
I put a 🔨 to a small diamond once. It stood-up to it about as well as a little piece of normal glass would. It was mostly dust.
Actually... it was an engagement ring with 4 or 6 in it. If you think I'm kidding I can show you the twisted gold ring. Love is grand 😃 ain't it?
How about a sword or armor made out of β-Ti3Au alloy?
If the macuhuitl is not effective for swinging, what about using it as a cutting weapon similar to a saw? The wood would obviously stop an effective chop but if you could thrust it past a guard and then draw it against an unarmored area it might be more effective?
The harder something is, the more brittle is becomes. It requires a bit of "softness" to retain its shape and structure.
To make aeroplane jet engine propellers, they make a single crystal of iron grow into that massive shape so it has no weak spots. I saw this on a documentary years ago so I hope I got that right. But when you mentioned crystals it made me wonder if there might be any benefit of making a sword that way or if it would have downsides...
You should see the only one remaining flint sword I can't spell 😃 a museum thought it was fake because it was paired with a samurai suit in Victorian times. They didn't realize it was an original, it was so very slender. Your paddle example may just be how it was drawn. Delicate features in life are often simple stylized representations in art.