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[Rowanas]

I've never seen molecule thick edges to a steel sword though, which is apparently what the maqahuitl could get with fine workmanship.

[Funk]

can any one help me with my testing my moded glass swords

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[REACTION:MAKE_SWORD_ADV_Glass]
   [NAME:make glass sword]
   [ADVENTURE_MODE_ENABLED]
   [PRODUCT:100:1:WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_SWORD_SHORT:GLASS_GREEN:NONE]
   [SKILL:KNAPPING]
untested frot mode

[REACTION:MAKE_SWORD_FROT_Glass]
   [NAME:make glass sword]
   [BUILDING:SMELTER:NONE]
   [REAGENT:A:1:BLOCKS:NO_SUBTYPE:GLASS_GREEN:NONE]
   [PRODUCT:100:1:WEAPON:ITEM_WEAPON_SWORD_SHORT:GLASS_GREEN:NONE]
   [FUEL]
   [SKILL:GLASSMAKER]

[PERMITTED_REACTION:MAKE_SWORD_FROT_Glass]

[Uristocrat]

Makes sense to me.

Wouldn't expect them to be terribly durable, but I bet you could get one hell of an edge on them.

Yeah, you can get one heck of an edge on glass.  I work for a factory that cuts & tempers windows.  You do NOT want to handle raw glass carelessly.  I've gotten nasty cuts more than once because I accidentally brushed against some raw.  And when it breaks, all the pieces are sharp, too.

Tempered glass is different, but dwarves don't seem to know how to temper glass and I'm not sure how much good it'd do them.  Dwarves aren't much worried about safety (tempered glass is seamed around the edges & it breaks into really tiny pieces, rather than long, dagger-like shards), or having it stand up to wind, so they probably won't ever worry about that.  Tempered glass is a bit tougher, if you're hitting it from the flat side, but hitting tempered glass on the edge causes it to explode because it's under stress.  Incidentally, if you've ever dropped a drinking glass and wondered how the glass bits end up so far away, that's why.

[zwei]

What about glass bolts (or glass tipped wooden/bone bolts)?

One-time use, kind of expected to break...

[vadia]

Which is one of these,

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

if you didn't know.
(That was almost a haiku!)

Obsidian as a volcanic glass is less brittle than manufactured glass generally, though you can get an equally sharp edge on manufactured stuff. That said, macquahitl themselves are only really effective against unarmoured opponents.

what do you mean?  a picture is worth 1000 words -- even at monosylables 5/1000/ 5 does not a haiku make.
but, yeah wear and tear effective would be nice -- IF it doesn't mean that dwarves need an infinate supply of metal to keep up with a small militia for a couple years.

[Jake]

I expect that once wear and tear is in it'll become possible to get back all the metal that went into an item you order melted down. Not sure how that'll work for ammunition, but probably we'll see metal arrowheads being mated to wooden or bone shafts in the manner of ballista bolts, and presumably it'll be possible to retrieve and reuse arrowheads.

[Virex]

What about glass bolts (or glass tipped wooden/bone bolts)?

One-time use, kind of expected to break...

Might work, since the impact resistance of glass could be high enough to withstand a bolt impact (it's shear stress that glass has trouble coping with, compressive stress is less of a problem.) One time use arrows and bolts even have an advantage since the opponent can't use them to fire back while you can use the enemies arrows (Several Roman and Greek generals exploited this by using arrows with custom ends that could only be mounted on their own bows.)

[Rowanas]

And Pila of course, whose thin, iron necks would bend or break on the gear of their foes, rendering them useless.

[Mel_Vixen]

What about glass bolts (or glass tipped wooden/bone bolts)?

One-time use, kind of expected to break...

Might work, since the impact resistance of glass could be high enough to withstand a bolt impact (it's shear stress that glass has trouble coping with, compressive stress is less of a problem.) One time use arrows and bolts even have an advantage since the opponent can't use them to fire back while you can use the enemies arrows (Several Roman and Greek generals exploited this by using arrows with custom ends that could only be mounted on their own bows.)

The problem is there is also stress from the firing. The later crossbows didnt use bolts because the bolt shattered under the stress of being fired so you had to use bullet like things.

[TheyTarget]

I dont see why it couldn't just be a weaker form of obsidian sword. Adds a whole other tier to the game play, and would only work on unarmored targets. Instead of iron, bronze, steel, you got green glass, clear glass, obsidian. You could give them to hunters, and watch them carve up animals. Honestly they would break a fair bit, but it's not impossible, and have been done more then once.