Sawfish sword

fearn · 21st July 2005, 01:52 PM

Hi Tim,

What you suggest is entirely possible. While I don't recommend damaging collections, you might want to find out how easy it is to carve a sawfish bill. It's not steel, and it might be possible to make carve such a sword in an afternoon, given decent tools. That's why tool marks would be useful.

So far as ID'ing this sawfish species, it turns out that sawfish taxonomy is kind of messed up. It looks like your specimen is not a bigtooth or smalltooth sawfish (see this link to a Florida museum). If true, this means that your sawfish wasn't caught in the Atlantic. There's a grad student at Iowa State who is currently reworking sawfish taxonomy. He might be able to give you some pointers on how to identify the sawfish that donated its bill here.

In any case, I'm looking forward to seeing the other pieces.

Fearn

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21st July 2005, 01:52 PM	#10
fearn Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 1,247	Hi Tim, What you suggest is entirely possible. While I don't recommend damaging collections, you might want to find out how easy it is to carve a sawfish bill. It's not steel, and it might be possible to make carve such a sword in an afternoon, given decent tools. That's why tool marks would be useful. So far as ID'ing this sawfish species, it turns out that sawfish taxonomy is kind of messed up. It looks like your specimen is not a bigtooth or smalltooth sawfish (see this link to a Florida museum). If true, this means that your sawfish wasn't caught in the Atlantic. There's a grad student at Iowa State who is currently reworking sawfish taxonomy. He might be able to give you some pointers on how to identify the sawfish that donated its bill here. In any case, I'm looking forward to seeing the other pieces. Fearn