Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Flintknapping => Topic started by: JustinNC on February 17, 2011, 12:27:37 am
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Just what the subject asks.
I refuse to learn on but our good wonderful, buttery smooth rhyolite :D.
I think it's going to be the death of me. I just can seem to get those critical ridges when it matters to take a major end thinning flake and seem to end up whittling it down before it gets thin enough. Them hill folk Parker cuzins could probably finish my "bifaces" but not I.
...make no mistake about it...it may take me longer to catch on, but I will learn on green, hard, nawth cackalaki rhyolite or not learn at all.
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What little I have done has been obsidian, glass, cooked nov.
Bevan
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my very first points were dacite(about 10 lbs,3 bird points)
then i got a hold of a bunch of obsidion slabs (about 50)
also used you tube to learn
it helped alot
if you do search on you tube you may even find a vid on knapping that stuff
ive tried that rhyolite
hate that crap,and i like hard materials
but the stuff i got is miserable to work
i cant hit it hard enough to get a clean flake with out it stepping out on me
id rather knapp the sidewalk out front ;D
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quartz, basalt and concrete. then i bought some obsidian and started bleeding bad. definetly prefer the tough stuff
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Edwards plateau from the Texas hill country.Also a local chert in Lampasas county. It's white creamy & doesn't need any heat.I found an old native quarry on a friends ranch. I haven't found a rancher yet that wont let me go & pick up some rocks from his property. I've been told son if your going to get one load you might as well get two.
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i've made a lot of gravel out of coral.
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I'm going to learn on this rhyolite one way or the other, if I have to drive up to hill, set a few pieces out by Jame's knappin pit for bait, you know, kind of like luring a skirl into a trap with peanuts, and hide in the bushes and watch and see how it's really done.
It'll be working fine, and then all of a sudden I'll get a big flake to roll out or step out on me and then I'll spend the rest of my rock up trying to set it up to take that stack out and before I know it, I went from something with a reasonable width/thickness ratio to a cucumber shaped "biface".
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I learned on agate from Arizona and Georgetown flint. It was available at my local landscaper supply yard. I also tried tempered glass, beer bottle glass, and plate glass. I used steel/copper boppers and steel/copper pressure flakers.
If I had to do it all over again, I would have used the highest quality flint, hammer stones, and antler. Period. My flintkanpping was going nowhere until I switched to highest quality Georgetown, cooked Edwards chert, soft stone abraiders, hammerstones, and the best antler I could get. After a year of using antler, I switched back to copper and steel and the light went on. DAMN! SO THIS IS WHAT THEY CALL THE "KNAPPERS HIGH". It was like the feeling you get when jogging actually feels good, finally.
If you insist on using a very hard material, then here's my advice. This is just one opinion. ;D
Use the hardest tools you can get your hands on: hard steel (not mild steel), hard hammerstones, grinding wheel abraiders, and diamond files. You also need to minimize your pressure flaking and get good at percussion - direct and indirect. You can get thin flakes from Ryolite if you use very soft boppers, but you will break those flakes when you start to shape them.
It may surprise you that many real artifacts have step fractures. Sometimes, the real points look rather crude but they worked for their intended purpose.
There are a few goals you should be concerned with:
Is it the right shape?
Is it the right size?
Is it the right thickness?
Is it SHARP?
Do not be concerned with:
Will someone want to buy this?
Is it purdy?
Is it cute?
Is it beautiful, lovely, etc. etc...
Ryolite is miserable stuff for someone who wants to produce points that are razor thin and look like a million bucks. It's not going to happen.
Ryolite is awesome stuff for someone who likes a material that will stand up to a lot of abuse. ;D
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exactly what pat said............or hit it harder, use a lot of padding, expect bruises ;D
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I have several rhyolite artifacts, all but one have step fractures on them. I'm getting better, I have yet to go from flake/spall to a point yet. I suppose if I messed with bird points more and just shaped up some of the flakes Ive knocked off Id have a few points, and if push comes to shove, in order to hunt with stone, I will, but right now Im shooting for points with flake scars on both sides, not a thin flake that has been shaped into a triangle. I seem to start out well when I have ample room to prepare a platform, but as I whittle it down, I choke and inevidably have to thin from the sides and run out of width before it's thin enough.......or take a stupid hit with a hammerstone that knocks out a flake that's got a big bulb on it.
I've got one dogwood billet, about 12" long and a little bigger than a golfball, and an array of every changing, soft cortexed, sandstone? hammerstones. A small/med whitetail billet that doesnt have enough mass to be effective on anything I'm working right now.
I've got a persimmon limb that should just about be ready to turn into billets. One thats about as big around as my forearm and about as long is getting ready to come out of it. I just hate when Im trying to be careful and not hit too deep and miss and hit myself on the leg. ::)
Jame I'm about 5 different shades of black, purple and blue this morning on my left thigh! A swing and a miss with a wood billet HURTS
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Cool. If you've got some real artifacts, you can learn a lot from them.
As for thinning, you can thin from the ends as well as from the sides, as long as you use a hard hammer. A soft hammer will grab the end and snap the point.
When the point gets smaller, and you don't have much material for a platform, try clamping the point in a vise, make a smaller platform, and knock off a flake using indirect percussion. Try using a masonry nail and a hammer to knock off the flakes.
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Cool. If you've got some real artifacts, you can learn a lot from them.
As for thinning, you can thin from the ends as well as from the sides, as long as you use a hard hammer. A soft hammer will grab the end and snap the point.
When the point gets smaller, and you don't have much material for a platform, try clamping the point in a vise, make a smaller platform, and knock off a flake using indirect percussion. Try using a masonry nail and a hammer to knock off the flakes.
I'd probably try several different things if I werent trying to stay all abo with it lol. I'm not trying to be smart I promise lol. Just trying to keep it to what they locals would have had on hand. I do use indrect occasionally, well sort of. If I get a step fracture and the flake doesnt break, I'll lay it back in there where it was and whack it again to try and sheer the fracture off. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt. Good little tip in one of those books I read.
End thinning is something Id like to see in person. Ive watched it on youtube, and done it occasionally, for some reason, this is where platform preparation really falls off for me. I can't wrap my mind around what I need to do unless there is a nice clear ridge running from the end, into the flake.
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Check out this video. Look at the indirect percussion methods. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMDDcIdgsEA
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do a search for "rocker punch knapping"
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All this advice is good! I learned on raw pedernales stuff and the occasional root beer that I found. Tonnage, then I learned the art of cooking the rock and worked with that - tonnage ;D till I started picking up on it. Looked at books, vid's, utube. Best thing I ever did was get with somebody that could show me in person..
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All this advice is good! I learned on raw pedernales stuff and the occasional root beer that I found. Tonnage, then I learned the art of cooking the rock and worked with that - tonnage ;D till I started picking up on it. Looked at books, vid's, utube. Best thing I ever did was get with somebody that could show me in person..
cowboy I know and have watched a few people that are pretty fair, but I've yet to watch anybody knap rhyolite that is consistant on it. I guess I need to point the truck towards Creston and see if I can talk Mr Parker into breaking rock with me.
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jackcrafty, what do ya use for soft stone abrader's
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I sat and watched James (robustus) one weekend and picked up a lot along with a peice of green rhyolite that he gave me. I think it must be some of the best rhyolite because it works good. I'm still hanging onto one chunk of it :).
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I sat and watched James (robustus) one weekend and picked up a lot along with a peice of green rhyolite that he gave me. I think it must be some of the best rhyolite because it works good. I'm still hanging onto one chunk of it :).
about 2hrs from here to James' front door. I've got some less than ideal stuff, and some decent stuff. I picked up a piece lastnight that was really nice. I promptly put it back down because I didnt want to mess it up. I can get all that stuff I want. Some works a lot better than other and I've managed to mess it up never the less.
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You have to HIT rhyolite, you can't play with it. Hit it like you're trying to kill a snake. ;D Also, rhyolite ain't rhyolite ain't rhyolite. Some of it is like granite. Some of it is layered and can't be worked without steps. Some is good stuff. I learned percussion on something even worse-I went to TN and picked up a couple truckloads of silicious limestone, works about like the porphyritic rhyolite.
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Bubby, I use sandstone. There are various grades of sandstone. Use the stone that holds together well and doesn't make too much dust is the good stuff.
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Steve, I guess you didn't like that Chert I brought to Cade's the first time? ;D I've watched James beat and make some beautifull points out of Ryolite using wood billets. And I've watched Claude VanOrder beat on the same kind of stone with copper boppers. And, honestly, the end product is hard to tell. I think a knapper with a butt load of experiance can turn out points of dirt if they had too.
Steve, you saw that Clovis point that Claude made out of Argilite. It doesen't have the first hint of a stack and was fluted on both sides by hand. And then the flutes thinned out finishing it, all with copper.
I still like beating on that crap because I like a challenge. :(
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justin bring some of that over to the house cause i done broke up all of mine i got a 2' high pile of gravel and no points.
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Steve I talked to james tonight, sounds like I may be using a soft hammer stone when I should be using hard hammer stone, also sounds like I'm using stone when I should be using wood, also, I keep worrying about breaking it...and I shouldn't and just need to drive the flake on off. Also learned that I don't need a moose billet. Now a little/lot more dues paying and riding to creston one day to see how it's done, I orta get somewhere.
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I'm from Charlotte NC and before i joined the Army i knapped a lot of rhyolite i mean a lot and thats also what i cut my teeth on.
Its been 12 years and i live in the flint Mecca now i middle north TN ;D ;D ;D
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Oh yeah, I've seen that candy you get up that way! I thought I'd read where you started on rhyolite. So you grew up in charlotte itsself or what?
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Found some harder hammerstones and got some cleaner, more predictable flakes and started whackin it harder and viola, less stacks and easier thinning.
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I learned on Buffalo River chert and Talahatta Quartzite. I switched to obsidion for a while, I love/hate it. Easy to get thin but I cut the snit out of myself every time I worked a chunk. Bill
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Yes i was raised in the city Justin. Moms parents lived out in iron station and i spent my summers out there. When i was 16 i went to live with some friends of the family Ann and Hawkeye. They were big into abo skills and my journey began,through them i met others and been at it ever sense.
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after steves comment all i can picture is justin running around the rhyolite with a billet and beating the snot out of it ;D
definetly check out the rocker punch knapping. not a lot of good info on it but once you figure it out it works incredibly well. does a great job on the nasty stuff. it was the only way i could get decent flakes from low grade onandaga. i also used the method to shape connecticut basalt before i grind it for celts. our basalt makes rhyolite look like obsidian.
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I give up until further notice lol
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Boppin at it like a mongoose dodgin cobra strike?
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Never give up. its just rock. Grab another piece. I have been working/learning on all kinds of diffferent types of rock. I still am a beginner in my mind. I still desrtoy more than I make and waste lots of material. Only way to learn is to keep doing it and pay attention to your mistakes
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Justin, can you post pics of the rhyolite you have? It varies so much and some is hardly worth picking up then some of it is great stuff. I used to try knapping way too fast and I would also have the finished point in mind before I even started. I didn't improve much until I started slowing down and just making a first stage bifaces then put it down and make another and another. Don't worry about making finished points for a while, just make bifaces. When you detach a good flake stop and put the flake back in place where it came off and study what happened and learn from it. I'm still not that good at taking these bifaces to the next stage but I'm not worried much about that right now because that is not what I'm trying to do, that will be the next stage for me. Also I have personally had really nice results with a heavy moose billet on the rhyolite that I have used. Here are some rhyolite bifaces I've done mostly with a moose billet and hammerstone and some pressure flaking to help set up platforms. Hope this helps some.
Alan
(http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh286/AlanShook/100_1568.jpg)
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Nice Bifaces, Alan. You been doing alright?
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Don't be so humble alan, I've seen some of your rhyolite points before through various searches I've ran on rhyolite. I can't see the pics right now because I'm on my phone but ill check em out.
I know what you mean about different rhyolite, I've got some stuff that's awful, then I've got some that's not so awful. I've seen a lot of nasty terrible rhyolite in my short knapping experience, but I gotta say, I've got some that's very nice. Certainly not the grade of that knife that james posted last fall but pretty fair stuff.
I shoulda kept to my word and took james advise and what you're telling me Alan, and put the first stage biface away and did another. I've ruined two nice spalls of good stuff this past weekend and last week. I should have laid it down but I got confident and went for it anyway.
I'm going to be a stubborn carolina boy and keep at it. Lord knows if I do get a point made, I'll need it to be made of rhyolite as hard as I am on things.
The moose billet seems to do well when I've used jonathan's but james said they're too hard, so I just haven't gotten one. If at all possible, I'd just as soon use what they had available here. Stubborn and makes for a hard row to hoe, I know.
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Just finally saw the pics....got a little bit of that stuff down on the bottom left...and idk about you, but mine works about like a chunk of concrete. Then Ive got some that resembles that other light green thats a little more blueish that works well that I mess up out of stupid mistakes. Had a nice biface about like that bottom, second from right one, that I hit too deep and snapped, couldnt salvage it with my skills.
James told me to do the method youre talking about Alan, and go one stage at a time. I knocked out a nice biface...with the help of a nice flake to begin with and could just see that big Savannah River hiding in it....so I continued.....ooops. Think I'll just continue to do what you're doing.
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Thanks Eddie, yeah been doing alright, how about you?
The pic is not showing the quality of that bottom left one Justin, it is actually pretty darn good stuff. But there is some that looks similar to it that is junk. James is the one who told me what I told you and it has really helped me a lot. I ruined a lot of nice spalls by seeing a big Savannah in there too.......I still do every once in a while ::)
Alan
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If you ever feel like headin down this way just point the truck towards mooresville and we'll beat on some rhyolite
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Broke another decent biface tonight. Was literally going to take one last thinning flake then put it aside and got above center an snap.