Main Discussion Area > Primitive Skills
Ishi fishing spear head attachment.
YosemiteBen:
Dogbane is a great cordage material! I have made hundreds of feet of it in my time. A light scraping will take off a fair amount of the skin. scrape in one direction not back and forth just until you see the fibers begin to break loose. I flatten the stem and break it open and usually end up with four pieces which I then break backwards over my fingers to separate the fiber.
I am not great at the photo thing. I will try to find someone to help me with that part. WStanley - come on up we can do a photo shoot....
on a side note. California is down to 5% of our average snow pack. Temps are unseasonably warm. An article I read yesterday indicated the 75% of western states can expect 130% of the 5 year wildfire average of acres burned!
Digital Caveman:
Maybe that is where the Tennessee summer has gone to ::)
I feel that some news outlets like to exaggerate things to get attention, but of course you know what you're doing.
wstanley:
Heck ya Ben. I could make it down at some point. I'll let ya know.
Working on the toggles. I am using elderberry. As you can see I abraded/ground the hafting groove and drilled out the entire stick with a keakook drill. The biface of course is obsidian. I need to make some pine pitch glue, sharpen up some deer bone into points haft them to the toggles, and finish my three ply cordage that will be attached to the toggles via pine pitch glue and sinew.
Fox:
So awesome :OK
wstanley:
Harpoon is finished. The cordage for the toggles is three ply dogbane and the rest of the binding is two ply. The harpoon tips are the same deer leg bones I posted earlier. Those were sharpened on my cement patio. The cordage attaches to the toggles with sinew and is covered in pine pitch glue for waterproofing. The toggles stay on snuggly even after whipping and carrying the harpoon around, but slide off easily with a bit of a tug (fish). Need to test it now! The shaft I think is key, to find something straight and with a good balance. When scouring the forest I had the idea in my mind that I needed something with the dimensions of a "flag pole" for the shaft. I feel that prehistorically (in CA) folks probably used bull pine because it grows straight and narrow when immature - bull pine grows in all foothill settings of California and is a strong wood. Anyway, once I can test this puppy out I'll post pictures. It was a blast to make, and I plan on making more but just with a single fork.
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