Main Discussion Area > Flintknapping
Messed Up An Artifact.
Ahnlaashock:
Don't, not until you play with some of the float material! You haul two hundred pounds to the house, and when you are done reducing it, and removing all the flaw, you have a coffee can full of flakes, and a few bifaces or plates. Oh, and blisters, callouses, and cuts to spare.
It does make learning easier tho, since I literally can go out and break up a ton of material, and only use sweat equity.
JW_Halverson:
Cool, send me 200 lbs of "float" and I will send you 200 lbs of Black Hills granite, I will even go collect it from the same formation as Mt Rushmore....though just not from in the borders of the monument!
Ahnlaashock:
That does kind of change one's perspective, doesn't it?
Aren't some of the garnet mines near there?
They often have material that is of little use, that plates of knappable garnet can be recovered from.
I used to have a local knapper here do small points out of South African garnet too dark for facet use. He said it required a lot of force, but I sold every one he ever did.
I wish I could remember the names. I know where his house is, but I have no clue if he still lives there or not.
JW_Halverson:
There are any number of places where exposed granite is very friable and you can pick garnets out by the handful. They are fairly dark and trend into the browner range for garnet. But they are the size of mustard seeds. Somewhere I have a coffee cup of these little gens.
Long ago I read an account of a British colonel hunting in India and he lost all his flints for his gun. A local knapped a large garnet and it was installed in his lock where it worked for years of hunting! THAT would throw great sparks, I bet.
Ahnlaashock:
I actually did this, but the one I had cracked badly along the edge.
Around here, I can walk out to the road and get a flint anyway!
No more with signs of work on it, at least in the immediate area.
I did pile up several hundred pounds of maybe material, and brought home a piece with a bunch of separate plates already cracked apart, and about 3/4 thick. Whether or not they will work, will have to wait till I have time to mess with it.
The better material I have found, is about 150 feet from that area, and higher on the ridge.
Nice meeting you, and talking to you!
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