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First Points of the Year

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RickB:
Parnell, quartz is brittle, cracks very easily and is found that way. That's the nature of the beast. I've dug it while looking for crystals, etc. or surface
found it. Around here it is everywhere but most of it is highly fractured or have internal crystal formations. The best quartz I ever worked actually
came from one of those marble counter top places. It was mostly clear with white streaky inclusions. I tried a billet on it and it flaked very good but
started introducing little fractures that I could see in the clear quartz. Changed to indirect and pressure flaking with an Ishi stick and it worked
out ok. Flakes wanted to stall out where the white streak went through it at an angle around the base. I had to angle my pressure flaking along
the plane the inclusion was running instead of directly into it. Will post another photo or two of earlier attempts at quartz. Here in central South
Carolina quartz and quartzite were the primary lithic material that early man used. There is a small mix of rhyolite and chert from the west of us
and rhyolite from the northeast of us. Most folks that I know who knap a little quartz usually use the larger broken clear crystals.

Earlier and crude quartz point attempts with a preform. 4 3/4" clear quartz (counter top point) on left side of leather was done about six years ago.

Allyn T:
Rick that is a great description of how the rock works, I really appreciate that. I don't think I could describe knapping anything nearly as well as you did.

RickB:
One of our members here, Billy Berger (Primitive Pathways on YouTube), has a video out on working quartz. Pieces I used were less fractured than
the ones he shows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBqqLViY5jc

bjrogg:
Thanks for posting this Rick. This has definitely been my experience with the quartz I have tried. I think I might have to give it a try again. I didn’t realize it was so widely used.

Bjrogg

Parnell:
Thanks for the explanation, Rick.  Look forward to trying that sometime.

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