Just curious. Always been interested in building a guillotine. Just curious of what the super lowest effort way of doing this would be. There is of course the tie a long rope to your neck and the other end to a tree and drive your car fast til it Yanks your head off. But am more curious in the lying still method of a guillotine.
You would need a very heavy large blade (and very sharp!), that would seem to be the hardest part. Everything else is wood, some good carpentry experience would be helpful. Somewhere to put it that is out of prying eyes, otherwise your neighbors would think you are really weird, at the very least.
I've always been fascinated by them, of course made famous in France. And probably more humane than hanging or many other methods of ending a life. Although we haven't been able to talk to the severed heads that are still moving afterwards to see if there's pain being registered.
I've always been fascinated by them, of course made famous in France. And probably more humane than hanging or many other methods of ending a life. Although we haven't been able to talk to the severed heads that are still moving afterwards to see if there's pain being registered.
Bootleg Astolfo
Glorious Bean Plushie
- Oct 12, 2020
- 740
Low effort. HOW DARE YOU MONSIEUR, DO IT PROPERLY YOU ENGLISH PIGDOG.
*La marseillaise ear rape starts playing*
*La marseillaise ear rape starts playing*
I get what your saying. My opinion is I doubt it registers pain as it consumes what oxygen is left inside of it. I've heard the eyes can move around a few seconds after being severed.
Part of my doubt of pain is just the shock factor. I've cut off my finger tip including bone accidentally. I mean, it did actually hurt. But the shock of it overwhelmed temhe pain if that makes sense. So the pain really wasn't a bother. The next three days were hell though.
Part of my doubt of pain is just the shock factor. I've cut off my finger tip including bone accidentally. I mean, it did actually hurt. But the shock of it overwhelmed temhe pain if that makes sense. So the pain really wasn't a bother. The next three days were hell though.
MatrixPrisoner
Enlightened
- Jul 8, 2023
- 1,727
ShatteredSerenity
I talk to God, but the sky is empty.
- Nov 24, 2024
- 411
If you don't want to go to the effort to build a guillotine, you can always just ask a buddy to wack your head off with a sword ISIS style.
If you have access to an airfield, a running propeller will lop your head off in mere milliseconds.
If you're seeking decapitation with the full guillotine experience, you'll need to build a complete replica of the wooden structures you can find pictures of on the internet. They're utilitarian devices and they don't have any bells and whistles, so there's not really anything you can remove to simplify it and reduce the effort to build it.
The only simplification I can think of is if you have a house you can modify, you could cut down on the bracing required by building it into the wall. You would need a window or cut a hole in the wall to stick your head through, then you could mount the blade on a lightweight frame bolted to the wall. That would also be less consipicuous than a standalone guillotine.
I would be terrified to stick my neck in any guillotine that was built half-assed, because a blade that sticks halfway through sounds like a horrific torture device. It needs to be built right with a lot of testing. Guillotines are large devices built for industrial scale execution, not 1-off suicides, so there will necessarily be a high cost-to-benefit ratio if that's the route you want to take.
If you have access to an airfield, a running propeller will lop your head off in mere milliseconds.
If you're seeking decapitation with the full guillotine experience, you'll need to build a complete replica of the wooden structures you can find pictures of on the internet. They're utilitarian devices and they don't have any bells and whistles, so there's not really anything you can remove to simplify it and reduce the effort to build it.
The only simplification I can think of is if you have a house you can modify, you could cut down on the bracing required by building it into the wall. You would need a window or cut a hole in the wall to stick your head through, then you could mount the blade on a lightweight frame bolted to the wall. That would also be less consipicuous than a standalone guillotine.
I would be terrified to stick my neck in any guillotine that was built half-assed, because a blade that sticks halfway through sounds like a horrific torture device. It needs to be built right with a lot of testing. Guillotines are large devices built for industrial scale execution, not 1-off suicides, so there will necessarily be a high cost-to-benefit ratio if that's the route you want to take.
To build on what you mentioned, a doorway would be ideal for this idea. It's already a rectangular frame and sturdy. You'll still have to heavily modify it to have a blade slide up and down and be able to hoist it up. Don't forget the bucket to catch your head.
This is also a pretty gruesome way to go for anyone who discovers you.
soonnotkoei
got my foot in the grave
- Sep 24, 2024
- 155
even if you built the wooden frame, youd have to forge your own super sharp blade sharp enough to go clean through the whole neck, which is hard i suppose. and as @ShatteredSerenity said, a blade half stuck into your neck would be less than ideal.
Gustav Hartmann
Elementalist
- Aug 28, 2021
- 818
If you are a mechanical engineer or a craftsman with a repair shop or at least knew someone with this skills it should be no problem.
But you have to take into account that nobody knows how it feels to be beheaded. Experiments with rats showed that their severed heads were most likely conscious for a few seconds.
But you have to take into account that nobody knows how it feels to be beheaded. Experiments with rats showed that their severed heads were most likely conscious for a few seconds.
ShatteredSerenity
I talk to God, but the sky is empty.
- Nov 24, 2024
- 411
Yeah, fabricating a blade that's sharp enough and heavy enough to slice a human head off cleanly and reliably would be very hard for most people.
One of my first jobs was at a machine shop that sharpened blades and cutting tools for industrial applications. The closest thing to a guillotine blade I worked on were the blades from Zamboni machines that are used to resurface ice rinks. Those blades were about 1/2 inch thick and 77 inches long, and they were extremely sharp. They were so sharp my hands were covered with cuts. We sharpened them in a long machine with a grinder mounted on rails that would automatically travel back and forth along the Zamboni blade, shaving a minute amount of metal off with each pass. Coolant was constantly sprayed on the cutting wheel to keep the temperature down and avoid any warping caused by heat.
The Zamboni blades were much longer than needed, so I'd esimate you could use a 2 ft x 2 ft blade for a guillotine. I think 1/2 in thick would be a minimum, you might need to go thicker for more weight and rigidity. You would also need to cut an angle on the rectangular blade, which is something most machine shops are equipped to do. The ideal process for sharpening it is basically the same as for the Zamboni blades, a grinder makes numerous passes to shave away metal until it's sharp. That kind of sharpening equipment is generally found at specialized machine shops.
If you wanted to fabricate the blade at home, you'd need to have a metal cutting saw to make the angle, and an angle grinder to sharpen it. I'm not sure how well the quality would come out using power tools instead of industral machining equipment. Sharpening it with a handheld grinder would be very tedious, and the metal would get very hot without coolant. It's not rocket science, but you have to be very steady and precise for long periods of time. It would definitely take a huge amount of effort for a result that would probably be mediocre at best.
Hiring a machine shop to fabricate the blade from a drawing would be a lot easier and produce guaranteed high-quality results, at the expense of higher cost.
Doing it at home shouldn't be overly difficult with some readily available tools. I mean, people forge knives in home shops. This is also assuming you have decent enough skills to do the fabrication. If this was the route I were to take, after completing the build I would test it on something that's close to representing your neck.
L'absent
À ma manière 🪦
- Aug 18, 2024
- 1,243
What you are describing is not a guillotine. The guillotine is, in every respect, an instrument designed to be lethal and requires a highly precise technique, typical of an expert. While some individuals have improvised a functional version and successfully achieved their goal, this does not mean that it was a universally reliable or easily replicable method. The documented cases of success are few but certain, as also reported in academic sources such as PubMed. However, these remain isolated incidents involving individuals with specific technical skills, making it impossible to establish broader statistics on their effectiveness. That said, if a guillotine is built according to all the necessary technical criteria, there is no reason to believe that it would not work 100%, because no doctor could ever reattach a head and bring someone back to life.
A frequently discussed aspect concerns the possibility of residual consciousness after decapitation, with some claiming that the head may remain aware for a few seconds and even perceive pain. This theory is completely unfounded scientifically. Brain death is instantaneous because the brain is entirely dependent on blood flow to maintain neural activity; once interrupted, arterial pressure collapses immediately, depriving the brain of oxygen and leading to an immediate loss of consciousness. Post-mortem twitches or movements of the severed head are simply neuromuscular reflexes caused by residual electrical discharges, but they do not indicate any form of perception or suffering. The idea that a severed head can "see" or "think" for a few seconds is a myth unsupported by any neurophysiological evidence. The guillotine, precisely due to its design, has historically been considered one of the fastest and "least painful" execution methods compared to others, making the debate on post-decapitation consciousness more rooted in folklore than in scientific reality.
A frequently discussed aspect concerns the possibility of residual consciousness after decapitation, with some claiming that the head may remain aware for a few seconds and even perceive pain. This theory is completely unfounded scientifically. Brain death is instantaneous because the brain is entirely dependent on blood flow to maintain neural activity; once interrupted, arterial pressure collapses immediately, depriving the brain of oxygen and leading to an immediate loss of consciousness. Post-mortem twitches or movements of the severed head are simply neuromuscular reflexes caused by residual electrical discharges, but they do not indicate any form of perception or suffering. The idea that a severed head can "see" or "think" for a few seconds is a myth unsupported by any neurophysiological evidence. The guillotine, precisely due to its design, has historically been considered one of the fastest and "least painful" execution methods compared to others, making the debate on post-decapitation consciousness more rooted in folklore than in scientific reality.
There's actually a lot of study about consciousness for seconds after decapitation. Including some I found on pubmed. Historically the reason it's not done as much for execution is due to suspicion of it being not a purely instant death. It probably is one of the absolute quickest though. Even without blood pressure, blood supplies cells. Cells still need to use up the energy they've already obtained from the blood supply.
www.discovermagazine.com
Are Humans Still Briefly Conscious After Decapitation?
Beheading is still practiced in some parts of the world, even though it is rare. So, do humans retain consciousness after the beheading?
www.discovermagazine.com
L'absent
À ma manière 🪦
- Aug 18, 2024
- 1,243
There is no definitive scientific evidence confirming consciousness after decapitation in humans. Studies showing post-decapitation brain activity are primarily based on experiments conducted on rats, in which EEG signals have been observed for a few seconds after decapitation, but this does not mean there is consciousness, as residual electrical activity does not equate to perception, thought, or awareness. The human brain, unlike that of rats, is highly sensitive to the lack of oxygen and entirely dependent on a constant blood supply to maintain consciousness, so when the head is separated from the body, blood pressure collapses immediately, and loss of consciousness is practically instantaneous. Even if some brain cells remain metabolically active for a few seconds before definitive cell death, this does not imply that the person is still conscious or capable of perceiving anything. Movements or twitches observed after decapitation are simply involuntary neuromuscular reflexes caused by residual electrical discharges in the nerves and not signs of consciousness. If the human brain truly remained conscious for several seconds after decapitation, there would be measurable signs of brain activity associated with perception and thought, something that no neurophysiological study in humans has ever demonstrated. The guillotine has historically been considered one of the fastest and least painful execution methods ever used, and the debate over post-decapitation consciousness is more a legacy of popular beliefs and anecdotal observations than a phenomenon supported by scientific evidence.
The EEG in rats after decapitation shows residual activity for about 10-15 seconds, with increases in F50 and F95 frequencies and a decrease in total power (Ptot). Some interpret this data as evidence that consciousness persists, but this hypothesis is problematic when compared with other known states of unconsciousness, such as coma and general anesthesia.
During general anesthesia, the EEG displays distinct patterns, with an increase in slow waves (delta and theta) and a reduction in high-frequency activity, reflecting deep cortical inhibition. Patients under anesthesia do not perceive pain despite having an active EEG, demonstrating that the presence of electrical signals in the brain does not necessarily imply consciousness. In coma, EEG patterns can range from slowed activity to burst suppression and even an isoelectric trace in cases of brain death. Even in reversible coma states, EEG activity is not an indicator of awareness.
This comparison highlights that post-decapitation EEG activity may not be sufficient to prove the persistence of consciousness, as similar signals appear in deeply unconscious states. The main issue with the argument that consciousness persists after decapitation is that EEG is the only available evidence, without proof linking this activity directly to conscious experience. The rapid loss of cerebral perfusion in decapitated rats makes it unlikely that the brain can sustain consciousness beyond a few seconds. If we accept that an anesthetized patient, despite having an active EEG, is unconscious, then the same principle should apply to decapitated rats.
The EEG in rats after decapitation shows residual activity for about 10-15 seconds, with increases in F50 and F95 frequencies and a decrease in total power (Ptot). Some interpret this data as evidence that consciousness persists, but this hypothesis is problematic when compared with other known states of unconsciousness, such as coma and general anesthesia.
During general anesthesia, the EEG displays distinct patterns, with an increase in slow waves (delta and theta) and a reduction in high-frequency activity, reflecting deep cortical inhibition. Patients under anesthesia do not perceive pain despite having an active EEG, demonstrating that the presence of electrical signals in the brain does not necessarily imply consciousness. In coma, EEG patterns can range from slowed activity to burst suppression and even an isoelectric trace in cases of brain death. Even in reversible coma states, EEG activity is not an indicator of awareness.
This comparison highlights that post-decapitation EEG activity may not be sufficient to prove the persistence of consciousness, as similar signals appear in deeply unconscious states. The main issue with the argument that consciousness persists after decapitation is that EEG is the only available evidence, without proof linking this activity directly to conscious experience. The rapid loss of cerebral perfusion in decapitated rats makes it unlikely that the brain can sustain consciousness beyond a few seconds. If we accept that an anesthetized patient, despite having an active EEG, is unconscious, then the same principle should apply to decapitated rats.
