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Virginia Quartzite Pieces

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Marc St Louis:

--- Quote from: Ncsnipe on September 12, 2015, 11:22:23 am ---Those are very nice points from some reallllly hard to work stone. Quartzite makes rhyolite look like primo material.

--- End quote ---

I guess it depends on the quartzite.  I found some a few years ago a few hours from me that was easy to knap and finished up with an extremely sharp edge.  I plan to go back there some day and get more

Tracker0721:
That looks like it took some skill! I can see the grain! Haha

Hummingbird Point:
Is there a Hall of Fame for flint knapping?  If so, I nominate Pete Davis.

Pete is like the Henry Ford of east coast quartzite knapping.  It isn't that he invented the methods as much as improved on them and through online forums and hosting knap-ins has been largely responsible for spreading the knowledge.  A huge pile of quartzite chips is forming up and down the east coast directly and indirectly from Pete's pioneering work.  No doubt, there are others, and all modern quartzite knappers are standing on the shoulders of the early experimentall knappers like Errett Callahan, Jack Cresson et al, who figured out much of what is known on how quartzite works.  I say "how quartzite works" because, for the most part, it is its own animal, and requires tools and techniques different than conventional knapping.  This is not to say that there isn't quartzite out there that a good raw chert or rhyolite knapper can't handle, but pieces like that along the east coast are rare.  I would say the same about the vast majority of the other notoriously hard east coast materials, argillite and pure quartz.  It isn't just that they are hard to flake, they also behave differently than chert (etc.) and there is a learning curve associated with them.

Keith

Zuma:
oh oh! Henry Ford spied on his workers, whom
he paid not to drink alcohol. Yikes
Welcome Hummingbird point.
Zuma
PS he cheated a bit at Flint Ridge and knapped
some Chigger Woods chert into "YES" a corner
notched. >:D

Hunts with stone:
Well said Keith. There aren't many to take on the eastern Quartzites. We that do have to learn from each other with so few involved strong ties are built. Pete has and will continue to be on the forefront of this hardstone obsession. We just spent the day together and was a great time. Sorry we didn't hook up Zuma for some time to talk again and seek out some greenstone.

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