Stone tools with plastic handles

Israeli designers Ami Drach and Dov Ganchrow presented their modern stone and flint tools at the Budapest Design Week. The pair combined hand-chipped blades and axes with modern high-impact plastic handles, to make tools that are beautiful and functional. I'd love to have one of those knives around the office. Designboom has more pics, and commentary:

the set is a result of an experimental exploration of the realm of tool making. where stone and flint tools have been the means of our ancestors' survival for over a million years, they magnify our bodily (teeth, fingernails, fists etc.) capabilities of cutting and chopping, sawing and pounding. through a method of three-dimensionally scanning and printing, the ancient artifacts are digitally outfitted with custom-designed handles, encapsulating the rugged forms in a perfectly enclosed case. by juxtaposing the polarities of the manufacturing processes in computer generated forms, an intersection of material technologies and functionality coincide on a tangible scale.

modern stone + flint tools by ami drach + dov ganchrow (via Neatorama)

• [MatthewKrohn]

  I’d be more impressed by a Clovis point!

  I kid.

  Really, that’s a cool idea.  Some beautiful flints, I like the gray one.

• [Florian Bösch]

  I’d hazard a guess they’re not terribly practical. /me picks a stone-chip out of his teeth after preparing dinner with them.

  • [acerplatanoides]

     I’m not sure I would cut a roast with them. Also not sure they’re dishwasher safe.

    All depends what sort of tool you imagine them to be. I think they’re a communications tool. And a great work.

    • [Florian Bösch]

      How do you use a stone knife and axe for communication? Bludgeon somebodies skull in to make a point?

      • [acerplatanoides]

        Art. This particular art has edges.

      • [cdh1971]

        Well, if you have a desk and have subordinates, you can display these on your desk within easy reach. I think that one can make the argument that this is art and merely an office decoration and not a weapon. 

        Should work equally well for educators and clergy. 

        Pic below is me at an office brainstorming session. So rewarding. (click to enlarge.)

  • [Nathan Hornby]

    Would be a great camping knife though.

  • [iread2]

    Have you ever held a stone knife? I have. Obsidian blades are often as sharp as a scalpel.

    • [Florian Bösch]

      Yeah, unless you use them, in which case they become really dull really quick. I’ve had my schooldays stoneage excursions. And sharpening them isn’t like something you just do. It’s like, you know, a hard-won skill, the kind that you do if you spend your live living in, oh I don’t know, the stone age.

      • [Trefunk]

        Sarcasm, from Gk “to strip off flesh” is a bit like a stone tool with plastic handle.

• [bcsizemo]

  A little too modern for my taste.  If you are going to use plastics at least make the handles more ergonomic/comfortable.

  • [iread2]

    I think getting a big contrast was the design intent. But, yeah, the tomahawk looks fatiguing to hold.

    • [Trefunk]

      Good for a short amok. 

  • [Vnend]

    Some time wrapping them with leather strips (or dipping them in something modern giving a good grip) could work wonders for that.

• [inkfumes]

  “Then he took his stone knife and skinned the heifer, and cut off a piece of fat meat. When he had done this, he said, “Why should I take your knives? The Ruler has given me something to cut with.” – Curly Chief –  Pawnee, ca. 1860

• [iread2]

  That humans and proto-humans thrived using stone tools for millions of years is something to ponder. 

  • [Trefunk]

    Badgers still live in burrows, amazing.

• [Tribune]

  I wonder what the TSA would make of these?

  • [MatthewKrohn]

    They’ll show up on the xray sometimes, but won’t set off the metal detector.  I know someone who flies frequently with one and he’s never had a problem.

    • [Analog Kid]

      Congrats.  You guys just gave the terrorists a great idea!

      • [alternatelives]

        Of course, it could go the other way. I think any terrorist would back down when faced with a planefull of angry knife-wielding travelers.

        • [Analog Kid]

          Best defense is a good offense.  I can buy that.

• [the_engineer]

  turn the stone into obsidian then the terrorists will have a field day on airplanes.

  Just another example of how “airport security” is such an oxymoron.

• [Wayne Dyer]

  What happens when the wrong end of an implement gets the innovation.

  • [cdh1971]

    Bone handled knives have been around for quite a while. But I’m sure you meant something else ;) 

• [Sum One]

  Retro fetishism at its finest.

• [edthehippie]

  neo-pagan , almost definitionally so !!
   : honourific do repeat  infinity , end of tape or untill   ” we are an old people , we are a new people , we are techno-pagan people , better than before , stronger than before  ” ; ( as musical  round )

• [babVU98i]

  I watched a guy flake chert speartips and arrowheads once as part of an undergrad anthopology course. Then we got to try.  It is not an easy thing to do.  Flint knapping, he called it.

• [amok69]

  I’m sorry to say that Ami Drach passed away on September 5th in his house in Tel-Aviv from cardiac arrest, leaving behind a wife and three daughters. Among his many accomplishments was heading the Industrial Design Department at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, Israel, from 2004 to 2008. He will be missed by all that have had the opportunity to cross paths with him.
  http://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/design/1.1818158

• [scav]

  I want to be buried with one of these to mess with future archaeologists. I also want to spend the last few years of my life eating food grown in a greenhouse supplied with CO2 made from limestone, so I carbon date as living in the Cretaceous.

  • [Donald Petersen]

    That’s a long row to hoe for a practical joke.  But yes, I do believe it’d be worth it.

• [Jonathan Peterson]

  not practical, but striking.  It’s a shame that pretty high quality industrial design/implementation in the plastic parts is framing points that are little better than rocks banged together.  Just imagine the same handles on something like this” http://flintknappers.com/images/products/1254176729knives_166_thru_172_044.jpg

• [Thad]

  … functionality coincide on a tangible scale.

  It was looking good until I read the write up. What utter bollox!

• [Mary Floyd]

  Don’t worry about the terrorists. They won’t read these nerdy comments.