Why are guillotine blades angular rather than rectangular shaped?

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Guillotines chop heads. If you look at the guillotine blade, it is angled, with one side of the blade much higher than the other end. I would think the guillotine blade would be shaped more rectangular.

In: Engineering

18 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

In addition to making a cleaner/more reliable cut, having an angled blade also places less stress on all of the components of the guillotine. A straight blade means all of the force is taken up in one big WHACK when the blade hits, meaning shocks go through the blade, the housing and the upright rails all at once. If the blade is angled the force is felt over more time, even if it’s like, a tenth of a second, it’s still better than the alternative.

Less blade sharpening, less maintenance in general.

Anonymous 0 Comments

the angle of the guillotine not only change it from a chopping motion to a slicing motion, but increased the cutting surface and increased the cutting speed significantly. Since the blade is at an angle to the cutting surface the cutting edge will pass through the object at a much faster rate then if the blade was parallel.

Because Science did an episode that explains very well. 8:25 showing that the cutting edge of a guillotine moves much faster than it falling.

[https://youtu.be/YlpiV4suBNA](https://youtu.be/YlpiV4suBNA)

Anonymous 0 Comments

Literally to ‘Slice’ the head off… much neater, more chance of the head coming clean off vs a blade coming straight down in an axe motion.

Anonymous 0 Comments

When it comes to soft-body stuff slicing>chopping (generally). For hard-body stuff chopping>slicing (generally).

soft-body would be things like meat, bread, fabrics, fruit etc.

Hard-body stuff would be things like rock, wood, old bread, ice etc.

Anonymous 0 Comments

1. Grab two tomatoes
2. Grab a sharp kitchen knife
3. chop the first tomato straight down, blade fully horizontal
4. slice the second tomato at an angle
5. you’ll have your answer 🙂

Anonymous 0 Comments

Same reason why we have curved swords. Curves make the slicing easier. Because the blade curves away from the direction of the slice, a smaller cross section of the blade is in contact with the target, so more force can be delivered at a single point.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s a physics thing.

The angled blade means the initial point of contact channels all the same force into a smaller initial contact patch and is cutting less of the neck at virtually every point of the cutting motion of the angled blade than a straight cut would.

You have more cutting blade go through the neck as the hypotenuse (Angled blade) of a triangle is longer the the sides (Straight blade).

Anonymous 0 Comments

Simple mechanical engineering. The [force is equal to mg sin (theta)](https://www.google.com/search?q=force+inclined+plane&rlz=1CAIGZW_enUS876US876&oq=force+incline&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0l6.2941j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) where theta is angle of the incline.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Was the original design angled? Were they always like this?

Anonymous 0 Comments

The same reason scissors are: They shall cut, not chop like a butcher does with his axe. A Guillotine blade is cutting through a neck starting from aside. Skin is chewy and flexible and therefore has to be cut, not chopped. The spine is hard and has to be dismembered with force and the blade must have enough speed for that. To cut through he remaining parts, throat and venes is easy.

Shall I go into the disgusting details?