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Topic Archives => Build Alongs => Topic started by: Matt E on November 27, 2005, 11:48:00 AM
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Lets hear about your best tip forour new knappers! Timo, marty and many others here are accomplished knappers.I know they have a special way of handling certain situations that we all encounter while bursting rocks. :) My tip is to make the back of the head out of the thinest part of the spall. The more I have up front to work with the more control I have in the outcome ofthe point. Lets hear your tip? I can use some help also. :)
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Great, Now if I just knew what a "spall" was i'd be set.
Seriously, is there a site for really new knappers?
I have a lot of interest and a bucket of flint but not a clue where to start.
Larry
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I'm just starting to knap. I understand the principals of knapping and have many friends that I trade with for points but last spring my wife bought me a book that really got me wanting to learn more. The book is..."Flintknapping-Making and Understanding Stone Tools" by John C. Whittaker. U of Texas press.
This books starts at the beginning and explains how it's done in a progression that makes it all come together. Mr. Whittaker is a teacher by trade and it shows up in this book.
This book will have to be my tip for you because I haven't had the time to spend prefecting this skill. Pat
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Keep a good point on your pressure flaker.Takes a lot less force to push off a flake and you have more control.
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I'd like to do that (go to knap-in) and maybe I'll get to one day. In the meantime these tips are great.
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I try to keep my point on my copper pressure flaker sharp like, Linc mentioned,but I make the point four sided. This gives me longer working time between sharpenings. I can rotate the point to get a better bite this way.
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Sharp tools,helps a bunch,If you use antler,then they need to stay dry. Humidity is rough on them.
Sometimes ,when things aren't going well,put the tools down and take a break.(no pun).I always knapp my best after a time away from it.
When doing percussion work, rest your arm on your leg,this helps with control,and keeps you from pulling the material away as you swing.
I'm sure Billet Head and Ralph will be along tomorrow to help out with some more important stuff!
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This is a tip from long time knapper and teacher Bill Metcalfe. He actually teaches you to take a sharpie pen and draw on the rock the intended flake to be removed. If you do this it will make you stop and think a bit before you just wail away at the piece. Everyone always wants to know how do you get them thin? To thin, flakes must travel past the centerline and take it out. Draw a line down the center of the biface tip to base,PREPARE PLATFORM,remove flake. Check your work by seeing how close you come to the drawing.If all goes well and each flake goes just past center they will get thin. Remember however each and every flake doesn't have to be a thinning flake. There are a lot of little flakes to raise edges and for trimming,shaping and such. Probabably the best tip is to PREPARE GOOD PLATFORMS, but it will take a while to sink in, because you want to hit it now! Mike Smyth
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When you think you've got your platform low enough (below the centerline), lower it some more. then when you think its low enough, lower it again.
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Kyle, sounds like you may have rapped a few above the center line,you arn't the only one. The result isn't exactly what you want. :(
Timo, I was expecting you to chime in. Put a fire under Billet Head and Ralph.I know they have a head full of knapping tricks! --------This is what I was looking for. I have already picked up some new information. Bernie inspired this as he is trying to get into the knapping side of archery and I thought this might help him and myself. Thanks all.
Larry, a spall is nothing more rhan a chip off a stone.I should have used another word I suppose.
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(I'm lovin' it too! I also happen to think a lot of others, many who never post, are too.) Thanks all! I'm writing them done in a list, as it is an old study trick/fact that what you write down you remember better (especially as opposed to "saving it to file", perhaps never to be found again - LOL)
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I think that one needs to find their own "groove". By that I mean the holding position or angle that works right for THEIR own swing. You can talk fracture angles and describe cones of percussion and conchoidal fracture angles all day long to others but until they find the hand position/holding angle/billet stroke that works for them, they'll just be breakin rock. For me, one day it just "clicked". It all fell together and my flakes started going longer, farther, and wider (where I wanted). I started getting true THINNING flakes and was able to carry percussion much farther into my bifacing process. Consequently, my bifaces all of a sudden were much thinner and "felt right". Its not a matter of intelligence or measurements, its a matter of POUNDAGE. If you break enough rock (different for different folks) and pay attention to what's going on, it'll all come together. Keep at it and don't get discouraged.
Oh and billet head and all the others are right about platforms and isolating them. Its almost as if you set up that platform right and isolate it properly, that flake just HAS to go right (I did say ALMOST now!!) Proper platform preparation precludes perfect preform percussion.
Kyle
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Another tip when bifaceing. Work the base then the tip then the middle. You work the base first as it is the widest and is the hardest to thin. Then the tip as it usually is the easiest as it is the narrow end. Save the middle for strength and take it last. The same goes for billets as pressure flakers keep them nice and smooth no nicks or dings. Doing this will make your strike more acurate. Hitting with a pitted or rough billet makes flakes go un predictible because they contact the stone on several places at once. Oh ya, did anyone say abrade those platforms! Mike Smyth
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If someone gives you some chert and you're going to use percussion for reduction, remember, if the chert is tough and knarly you will do better with slower swings that make contact for a longer period of time with the platform. Also, the size of the billet can be increased. If the material is the best you've ever seen, the baton can be lighter and you can use more speed while reducing the piece.
My second tip is a single word. CONTROL
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Control means to make everything you do make sense and have a purpose. An analogy would be just like an intersection with cars going all directions at once is difficult to cross, so to is a piece of rock if flakes aren't taken in order and with a purpose. One flake should always set up the next flake for removal. Mike suggested removal past the center line of the rock and that's good for early reduction. During the completion phase however, certain points require stopping at a ridge line down the middle of the point if you are replicating causing everything to require different striking platforms.
I think you have to decide what you're looking for in knapping and whether you are interested in pure artwork or replication. Study some old points and try figuring out how they got there. It wasn't by chance. Everything was planned. CONTROL!!!!! Lithics Casting Lab sells replica's that are wonderful to handle and study. Another good way is to buy broken points and especially bases for study subjects.
Why do all this you say? Grasp the Past--- And enjoy hunting with stone points. Ralph
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platforms
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I think for a newbie (myself included)it is wise to work with one medium at a time.Not to jump back and forth.I find the each type of rock has it's own characteristics and it will screw you up quick.Example: going from chert to obsidian to chert.Obsidian takes a lot less purpose and more finess.I find that after working on the harder materials and switch to obsidian I tend to over power the piece I am working on.The reverse is also true about not using enough power on the harder material.
This may not be true for everyone but I find that's the case with me.
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It's great to see more knapping info popping up here. I have a pile of flint and all the tools in the shop. I started messing around with them after reading and watching everything I could on flintknapping. My first daughter was born just as I was getting into it plus some other obligations and I wasn't able to get the hang of it.
I hope to have some time to spend knapping this winter. I understand the terminology and the how and whys of working rock, I just have not figured out how to apply it effectively. I think it will be like bow building was for me years ago, I read and watched and understood but it did not click until I actually started doing it correctly like Kyle said.
Maybe one of you more experienced fellas could write a "Knapping For Dummies" article for beginners and I'll print it in The Bowyer's Journal.
-Brian
www.bowyersjournal.com (http://www.bowyersjournal.com)
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Best tip I can give ya'll and I am surprised nobody has even mentioned this is ....wear safety glasses....buy stock in the band-aid companies...and a good kelvar glove might be handy..I just dug 10 splinters of obsidain outta my hand this morning.....gut
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Brian H. < I remember when your baby was born.We traded heads for wood. That piece of Osage you sent me made a darn good bow! By-the-way, how long ago was that? L.O.L.
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Find good material, no need to handycap yourself with hard or impossible to work rock from the beginning. Then make a couple tons of dust.
I just started using the cut resistant gloves and love them, they'll save you alot on bandaids and superglue.
Oh yea slow down!! :D
Ralph, I stuck that great point of yours Tim sent up in the dirt the other evening, right tween his legs as he was quartering away :knothead: No damage, a little touchup and it'll go back in the quiver.
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Yessir Matt, glad to hear the osage worked out for you. I was a little nervous sending that not-so-perfect stave after seeing the beautiful knapped points you sent for it. Just like osage, darn things were poker straight when I split them then they moved a little in storage. I still have every point you sent. I mounted a few and practiced with them but never hunted with them yet. I planned to use them once I got a bow made worthy of flinging them since they are legal in PA. Dang, that had to be close to five years ago.
-Brian
www.bowyersjournal.com (http://www.bowyersjournal.com)
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More info on the cut resistant gloves, please, Doug.
(Good example of how quickly time gets away from us, Brian and Matt. Better do "it" now, everyone!)
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Brian my friend, any Osage is good Osage in my part of the world. A little steam and a tweak or two and that stave was perfectly straight.When I received it I felt like a thief. I got so much for so little.The postage on a few heads was not even close to what you payed to ship the stave and getting the stone for the heads was easier than cutting down a tree and spliting it.Yeah, I got the best end of the deal for sure, no reason you should have been nervous...... Merry Christmas all!
P.S. one more tip. You can get a lot more than your head are worth in trade! :)
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I can vouche for the fact that Brian tends to give the best part of a trade.
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This is maybe just a different way of saying what's already been said but this is what has helped me the most. After every flake (especially the ones that didn't work out the way you wanted) pick up the flake and put it back on the biface. Look at what's left of the platform and look for the spot that your billet struck. Then think about how and why the flake came off the way it did or why the biface broke or whatever else may have happened. Slowly you'll gain experience and then be able to anticipate what will happen when you strike the biface and where the flake will travel.
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Bernie, I looked but there's not info on the tags. A buddy picked these up as Quartsite, (sp?) AZ last year. Sorry can't be more helpful.
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Doug, can you send a picture of the quartzite .We have quartzite here in N.C. but I can't seem to find a good grade of it.Most will have rust looking veins running through it.This make it easy for a flake to run off course spoiling the work. It is one of the hardest stones to knapp that I have run up againest. The native must have had a problem with it as well. When I find artifacts of quartzite they are,for the most part, crude.
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Doug, can you send a picture of the quartzite .We have quartzite here in N.C. but I can't seem to find a good grade of it.Most will have rust looking veins running through it.This make it easy for a flake to run off course spoiling the work. It is one of the hardest stones to knapp that I have run up againest. The native must have had a problem with it as well. When I find artifacts of quartzite they are,for the most part, crude.
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Doug, can you send a picture of the quartzite .We have quartzite here in N.C. but I can't seem to find a good grade of it.Most will have rust looking veins running through it.This make it easy for a flake to run off course spoiling the work. It is one of the hardest stones to knapp that I have run up againest. The native must have had a problem with it as well. When I find artifacts of quartzite they are,for the most part, crude.
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Doug, can you send a picture of the quartzite .We have quartzite here in N.C. but I can't seem to find a good grade of it.Most will have rust looking veins running through it.This make it easy for a flake to run off course spoiling the work. It is one of the hardest stones to knapp that I have run up againest. The native must have had a problem with it as well. When I find artifacts of quartzite they are,for the most part, crude.
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Matt, I meant the gloves came from Quartzite AZ. There is a big knapp-in down there every year. But.... we have found some pretty good grade quartzite up here in MT, it will certainly make cruder looking points than most of your cherts or volcanic rocks. When you do get a point out of it it will be tough though, I killed a turkey with one last year after missing, turks with the same point two times. It's still intact.
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I just pulled this thread up to re-read it, now that I'm trying to learn how to flintknap. Lots of great tips here, and now that I've been breaking rock for a while, they actually make sense.
As a beginner, one of the best tips I can give is to SLOW DOWN, and don't just go to busting rock. Stop, look the rock over, and try to imagine what your next blow is going to do, and how it will affect the next 3 or 4. Like Ralph told me at OJAM, it's just like a chess game. If you can't look several moves ahead, you aren't going to be very successful.
You guys that have been knapping for several years amaze me at how fast you can go from a big rock to a small point. I just have to keep telling myself that I'm not experienced enough to see what needs to be done that fast. It sometimes takes me several hours to get a rock thinned out enough to be ready to pressure flake, because I have to study the rock before each series of blows, to try and decide how to attack it without messing it up.
I've still got a LOT to learn, but thanks to the tips I'm learning, and getting a chance to watch good knappers, I'm definitely making improvement.
Also, good rock is a definite plus if you want to make a good point, but if you don't have a steady supply, there's nothing wrong with practicing on not so good rock. It's fun to take a big ole' chunk that you know won't make a point, and just see how thin you can get it. Sometimes you will suprise yourself.
And probably the best tip I can give beginners...abrade the heck out of your platforms EVERY TIME.
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Shawnee is any of the Kay county working for you?? Mike Smyth
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What a timely thread. Advise me some of you pros, is a moose billet 8" long, 1 3/4" at the dia. and 14 oz a good size for a total beginner? I want to try abo-style knapping.
Rusty
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Tater,
I don't know about the billet I started with a whitetail antler so anything works it's just if you can either figure out if the billet is the wrong size or if you are doing something else wrong. However i do have a tip for keeping you antler billets in tip top shape, CORN HUSKERS HAND LOTION. yep that smelly nasty stuff works great for keeping your antler percussion tools in working order for a long time again PERCUSSION.. for pressure flakers soak the tips in i believe a 1part ca glue to 2 parts acetone?(if anyone remembers what that was for sure please let me know). I've only done it once it does help your antler tips last longer but i have found it more convient to keep several around along with nice supply of fresh bone. which makes a good pressure flaking tool. hope this helps someone.
good luck and happy knappin
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I do have antler tines for pressure flaking and small material to work with, but was wondering if aquiring a moose billet would be a tool to consider having for a beginner? Plus I know where one is to be had.
Rusty
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er, what is a platform?
:confused:
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Mike,
The rock is definitely working for me. Just need to get better at making it do what I want. I haven't used a lot of it yet...still beating on some of the rock left on the tarp at OJAM, but I've done some of it, and plan on working a lot more of it in the next few weeks. Just finished our last flintknapping class tonite. That was a blast, too.
ncboman, I'll try to explain a platform, but some of the more experienced knappers can do a lot better job of it. It's basically an edge of the rock that you strike to drive off a flake to thin the rock. Platforms need to be below the centerline of the rock, and abraded(ground with an abrading stone or soft rock) to strengthen it so that the flake will travel.
Steve Holloway posted this link on a different thread a month or so ago...check it out and I think it will explain it better than I can.
www.indiancreekbowhunters.com/lithic.html (http://www.indiancreekbowhunters.com/lithic.html)
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It's basically an edge of the rock that you strike to drive off a flake to thin the rock. Platforms need to be below the centerline of the rock,
Would platforms correspond to 'shelves', like I find on hillsides in parts of Ohio? ie, a spot to get a bite?
Also, what if the piece is too thick at the centerline? I would assume the desired thickness would be of first order?
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and abraded(ground with an abrading stone or soft rock) to strengthen it so that the flake will travel.
I would assume some of the reason modern heads are generally of better quality than relics is our ability to access tools for this purpose. Also, I imagine few Indians had access to the variety of quality material afforded today.
Would a diamond grinding stone on a dremel tool be a common modern tool of the trade?
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Yes, a platform is a place to get a bite. And I think the main reason that some of the points today look better(to some, anyway), isn't necessarily because of the tools available...some of the best work I've seen is done by abo knappers with historically correct tools. I think that the reason is because knappers today have all the time they want to make a nice point, and aren't depending on it to survive.
I have never seen anyone use a diamond grinder in a dremel tool to abrade. I would think it would be way to much. Most use either a sandstone rock, or some type of grinding stone, like a whetrock or piece of grinding wheel. The platforms will crumble if they aren't abraded for strength, so that is a very important part of the knapping process.
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Shawnee, I can tell by the posts you have made here that your coming right along. You been paying attention. Keep up the good work. Mike Smyth
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Are there any how-to websites on this matter? I've got a bunch of obsidian but need a refresher on basic terminology etc. Thanks!
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Thanks Mike. I'm trying. Still not turning out anything too impressive, but they are getting a little thinner, and a little better. And I'm not ruining quite as much rock as I was for a while.
Ursus, there are a lot of sites that will help...probably the best way to find them is to do a search for "flintknapping" on the internet.
Maybe some of the real flintknappers will get on here soon and list some of them for you.
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There is currently a thread (another one) about Knapping Material where I listed some valuable help type URLs, though i'm a beginner too.