Flint Skills

[Les Marshall]

Can someone recommend a good book that will show me a step-by-step guide to making flint tools, and the techniques needed? I'm thinking of taking it up as a hobby as there seems to be an abundance of flint where I live.
Cheers :-P

[Jeff Wagner]

There are a number of master knappers. I have met DC Waldorf, Jim Redfern, Dane Martin and a few others. If you are not able to to work with a teacher I would recommend a combination of books and tapes. There are learning aspects that you can get better from one source than the other. For example you can see the power of the baton blow better in a tape, however the concept of "below center plane" may be more clearly illustrated in the book. Here are some good reference sources.

http://www.eskimo.com/~knapper/catolog.html

[spiritofold]

Take a look at John Lord's site, http://www.flintknapping.co.uk/
He sells a small book that explains alot of the basics to flintknapping using Norfolk flint.This bloke really is the master,you should see the arrowheads he
makes,they are perfection.John also runs knapping courses,give his site a lookup.

One other book i found usefull is by John.C.Whittaker,called
"Flintknapping,Making & understanding stone tools"

I have an ebook that i'll uplod to my site later on as well,showing some good basic skills.

Regards,
Andy in very rainy Winchester

[leon-1]

You could always get in touch with (maybe a PM) acw_akkermans and ask if he could send out the hand out and bits that he did for the first Wilderness Gathering ):

[Les Marshall]

You lot are really something, I knew I could rely on you. Thanks

[Tvividr]

Can someone recommend a good book that will show me a step-by-step guide to making flint tools, and the techniques needed? I'm thinking of taking it up as a hobby as there seems to be an abundance of flint where I live.
Cheers :-P

I have The Art of Flint Knapping by D. C. Waldorf and 20th Century Lithics by D. C. Waldorf - both of them are good. Can't remember where I got mine, might have been at BOSS before they closed their store for non students or alumni, but you can get them at the link that Jeff Wagner posted.
I also have the Flintknapping Flash Cards by Errett Callahan. Quite good too.
You will also find lots of information (on a lot more bushcraft stuff than flint knapping only) in the different issues of The Bulletin of Primitive Technology.
A big favorite of mine is "Mand og Flint" by Anders Kragh, which I value perhaps more than The Art of Flint Knapping. The big problem for you though, would be that it is in Danish only :roll:

[Snufkin]

I would suggest this DVD, the shipping cost isn't bad and it really is helpful to see a knapper working and Mark Bracken is really good at it. The books suggested are very useful too but with the DVD you see how hard to hit and at what angle.

[PC2K]

i tryed flint knapping, it's really hard ! I really did nothing that making a piece of flint more useless than before. :?: i somehow seem to hit the wrong side everytime, because my logics says i should hit the other side to creat a certain shape. Maybe i should start doing the opsite of what i think... or pay more attention when it was explain and shown for me... more than once...

here are my flint knapping tool with a hitting stone and flints piece around it.They where free... ):

[Gary]

Great minds think a like Les, this is an avenue I'm thinking of following too!

[James Watson]

Take a look at John Lord's site, http://www.flintknapping.co.uk/
He sells a small book that explains alot of the basics to flintknapping using Norfolk flint.This bloke really is the master,you should see the arrowheads he
makes,they are perfection.John also runs knapping courses,give his site a lookup.

One other book i found usefull is by John.C.Whittaker,called
"Flintknapping,Making & understanding stone tools"

I have an ebook that i'll uplod to my site later on as well,showing some good basic skills.

Regards,
Andy in very rainy Winchester

Hi
I Can recommend learning from John Lord. I've had a couple of "one on one" sessions with him. A true master of his art. He will teach other primitive skills also, bone work etc. Oh, Val his wife knows her stuff also. She's specialising in cordage and textiles at the moment.

Best wishes,

James

If your in the Devon area, i've got some flint to knapp.

[Jeff Wagner]

If you are not able to work with a teacher I suggest a video as the next best approach. There are subtlties that are difficult to grasp from a book alone IMHO. There are also more and less forgiving materials to knap. I tried a cobble of English flint a few years ago - I think its tough stuff to learn on.

[Tony]

I know it's a ways off but we're aiming to have flint knapping at the meet up (BushMoot :wink: ) next year. It should be a good hands on introduction for a lot of the members :biggthump

[ChrisKavanaugh]

Knapping is my favourite method for humbling people who think anything before 1950 is irrelevant or crude. Master knappers can take up a core and analyse it with the same skill as a diamond cutter. I've read some artifacts even show evidence of tempering to improve the grain structure.The late Donald Crabtree was the dean of american knapping. His medium was obsidian, and meeting a european practitioner they found each other's material totally foriegn. Crabtree underwent major heart surgery and prepared a complete obsidian kit for his operation. The surgeon had to practise first. The obsidian edge is literally one molecule thick and required retraining his hand muscles for the fine incisions. The upside was a faster healing time and glass edges are now common. Local materials are to dear, so I make due with glass. My best effort was a dart that sported the Coca-Cola logo.

[brucemacdonald]

My best effort was a dart that sported the Coca-Cola logo.

At the first Wilderness Gathering Anthonio Akkermans said that he used beer bottles. :uu:

He did however point out that he perfected this skill whilst working as a barman in a pub in London.....

Best wishes


Bruce

[Les Marshall]

I'm intrigued, how do you use glass? :?: I know that flint is perhaps as close to glass as you can get in nature, but surely the glass will shatter?

[R-Bowskill]

Glass comes in different types, ordinary window glass isn't much use, forget any 'toughened' or 'safety' glass. It wants to be quite thick especially when you start off. OLD bottles are best. I don't use glass often as I'm near the source of the best flint in the world. Start making something simple, a hand axe or blade / scraper before going for a barbed and tanged arrowhead or a knapped sickle.

I'm a long way from being an expert but like many things each time I do some knapping I either get a little better or learn what I did wrong.

[Tvividr]

Beer bottles, coke bottles, TV tubes etc all work very nicely. Something in between flint and obsidian. I've had students start of on glass to get the basics before knocking on more valuable stone (no natural flint in Norway, we only got quartz which is not as easily worked as flint or the even sharper and easier to work ... pure obsidian)
You can also use sanitary ceramics ("Thunderstone" or "Thunderchert" is a flintknappers popular word for toilet bowl ceramic :roll: ).
Cheap sources for those without easy access to flint, obsidian or other knapable stone.

[ChrisKavanaugh]

I may have mentioned this in another thread. One of the spanish galleons plying the great circle route came to grief on the California coast with a shipment of chinese ceramics. The local indians slavaged the ceramics and used them for knapping. It is something of a holy grail to find an example. I did a few times, a lovely projectile point in white with a tree and temple and a scraper with a yellow dragon. A few asides worth mentioning. I hope everyone is wearing safety glasses? Please be carefull WHERE you do your knapping. I was working a active site with several field students. This one idiot fancied himself a born again Neolithic Hunter. Fine enough, until I found him chipping merrily away on native chert- in a excavation unit. I wanted to slit his throat with my trowel. Cultural and literary references to lithic tools are also ready to be 'mined.' There are references to metal objects being a safety talisman against the kidnappping by fairies. This no doubt goes back to the irish invasion cycles, when the Tuatha de Danu, a neolithic people worshipping Dianna, were subjugated by the Milesians, a metal using people from Spain. I can't remember my source, but I believe in Shakespeare or another bit of classical literature mention was made of burying a noblewoman with flints. It's amazing how much of our culture still retains the faint, but still rich smell of ancient campfires. :chill:

[Jeff Wagner]

Lithic materials including glass and porcelain bathroom fixtures that exhibit concoidal fracture can be knapped just like flint. Obsidian is afterall, volcanic glass.

http://www.bladegallery.com/knives/k...=small&alt=one

[BIG-TARGET]

Here is a CLASS that is done in Moorestown, next to Cherry Hill!!!

Might even take one of his classes.

[R-Bowskill]

TV tubes...watch it when you make the first break, they're supposed to implode but the effects can be quite dramatic even so. If you get hold of one I'd reccomend throwing a stone / brick rather than hitting it with a hammer!!!! (experience!!!)

Apart from that they are good, about 1/2 inch 12mm thick so you've got something to work with that you can actually hold.

[Roving Rich]

Cool - Top tip - throw a brick at the telly
I took to flint knapping like a duck to water.(Started with Antonio at the same Wilderness Gathering :wink: ) One of the first things I made was beautiful barbed arrowhead "As good as any in the museum" the expert told me ):
It got attached to a hazel shaft, and fletched with goose feathers. The first and second shots (is that correct for Archery ?) went clean through the archery target, We had to cut the arrow out on both occasions due to the barbs. Next the best archer had a go, and the arrow swerved off left, and hit a corrugated iron barn. It snapped half an inch off the tip of the arrow head, and ruined its sleek lines, I reknapped the remainder and still had a sharp useable arrow.
By all accounts John Lord is this countries finest knapper. I intend to get some one on one time with him. He offers day classes for small numbers for a very reasonable sum.

Cheers
Rich

[Paleoaleo]

Howdy Folks. I'm a flintknapper from California, USA. Found this discussion and thought I'd join in to say that, in a pinch, glass works well for knapping! So does porceline from toilet tanks ("Johnstone" aka "Thunderchert").

Here's some photos. The first is a blue glass point, made from an old dinner plate:



Here's a large knife blade made from 1/2" plate glass:



And here's some points and blades made out of toilet tank material:



Flintknapping is addicting....watch out!

Tom

P.S., great website you have here!

[tomtom]

Tom.. im sure you heard it before.. but (and there not a smilie to describe :shock: :clap: :smiley-fa :yumyum: :bling: ): :biggthump ) they are AMAZING!!


P.S. all the best people are called Tom!

[Buckshot]

"As good as any in the museum" the expert told me

Does that mean it looks like it's been buried for a couple of thousand years... ):

Mark

[Paganwolf]

Yep i agree with tt with bells on! top stuff tom :biggthump

[Roving Rich]

Fantastic !

Good ot See you here Tom, Just been looking at some of your fine work over at Paleo Planet

http://p081.ezboard.com/bpaleoplanet69529

Cheers
Rich

[philaw]

Tvividr, it's interesting that you import flint to Norway to work with. I live in East Yorkshire (near Leeds), UK, and have recently developed an interest in prehistoric british history. At the local museum (in Hull) there are samples of flint arrow heads and spear tips. The thing that really stood out for me was that tests had revealed some of them came from Cornwall, in the far south west of Britain! Supposedly unfinished items were traded, I guess the idea being that less excess weight is carried en route, and some effort is still saved by not finishing them. It sounds very similar to the way knife blades used to be shipped from britain to the US. Even where people had flint close by, they would make a big effort to get the best quality stone. However far you have to go to get our flint, at least you don't have to walk 300 miles!

[Tvividr]

Wow! That's some very nice work you've done there Tom.
:biggthump

[Ed]

They are fantasic..... my efforts look like... well.... broken bits of rock :-( I suppose I just need more practice..... and alot of time

Ed