Adson Delicate Forceps, 12 cm – Tungsten Carbide Smooth Jaw

At 7/0 and finer, a suture is thinner than a human hair, and serrated jaws do not grip it — they cut into it. Every serration is an edge, and an edge closing on a monofilament that fine either severs it outright or leaves a nick that fails later under tension. Smooth carbide jaws hold by friction across a flat face instead, which is enough to control a suture of that weight without deforming it.

Carbide is used for the smooth faces rather than plain steel because friction is the entire mechanism here. Polished steel wears to an even slicker surface over years of reprocessing, and a jaw that has lost its grip on 7/0 suture is useless for the one task it exists for. Tungsten carbide keeps its surface texture, so the grip at the end of the instrument’s life is the grip it had at the start.

Specifications