Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Flintknapping => Topic started by: 1442 on February 28, 2017, 11:45:01 pm
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aint had too much time to knap but I've managed to work a few flakes the last couple weeks.
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this is three pieces of gravel I picked up the other day
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little Georgetown and gravel point from flakes
and a biface from tx material I made tonight
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Very nice 1442, I'm amazed how efficient you are with your stone. Afraid I need bigger pieces than that to start out with to come up with points like that. My biface would have to be that big
Bjrogg
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Just out of curiosity, are they in your hand the same order as the points you got from them?
Bjrogg
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Well you sure do a heck of a job with that old gravel.
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Love the butterscotch!
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Very nice looking points. You do some good work.
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Very well done!
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You sure do make some beautiful points.
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Thanks Y'all.
Bjorg, they are in the same order then the close ups are posted left to right.
Here's a couple shots of each one midway.
the first one was good rock through and through, I worked from the ends first to spare the width
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the middle rock had some inclusions but was good rock past that
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the third rock on the far right was awfull. lots of issues and the material was real grainy
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Thanks for the extra pictures 1442. At first glance I would have thought the third one looked the slickest. I probably wouldn't even have picked up the first one. Very interesting
Bjrogg
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Can you do a bipolar split of that gravel and get two from one?
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here's the other side before I started. you can make out the ugly on that third one.
Nclonghunter, I used to try to split some gravel bipolar. I got a couple to work half good but there are so many shallow cracks under the cortex that I would usually just crumble the ends or only remove a portion of one side. I try to pick pieces with a flatter profile nowadays like these here that are too thin to bipolar anyway. I think they're too thin anyway, I never was able to get it to work on thicker stuff and wouldn't even consider it on thinner pieces like these.
Citronele gravel seems to be more solid just under the cortex and it is more bipolarable. I've found many pieces of citronele that the natives bipolared nice thinnish slabs and I always wondered how they did it and would comment to people that they had some way of breaking gravel into thin slabs. Then one day after I started knapping, I learned about bipolar reduction and realized that was how they was doing it.
I have a rock saw now too so if I get a piece with good material and thick enough, I just saw it in two
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How do you thin them? I guess when I knap I hit at the wrong angle. Do you hit the platform at a really shallow angle to reduce thickness without losing width?
Those are beautiful points!
Neal
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Patches,
I try to create short steep angles that will let me get overshot flakes or almost overshots and I thin real aggressively early in the process. I don't try to make picture perfect platforms, I just get an angle that will work and take some relief flakes if needed, then work off that angle until I've removed the most material I can.
The most importantthing that took me forever to realize is to get rid of any lip created by previous flakes. That lip can cause the energy to go off in other directions and always puts it diving into the rock too deep to get a clean termination.
I really can't hit very accurate , so I don't try to make small platforms. Ijust get the angles close, grind it good then hit hard. I use a large bopper too. My friend Freezecracked calls it heavy slow percussion.
I can't expain it too good. I will try to take some pics of how I set up an angle to use as a platform and the sequence to work that angle to max effect. I even got me a smart phone recently and might could take some video. I reckon that would be the best method for me to convey what I want to.
As a piece gets smaller and thinner, swing accuracy gets more important and misstrikes cause more trouble then. That's where I start to struggle the most because my accuracy just aint good enough to hit right where I want to half the time.
It's supposed to rain this weekend, and I will make it a point to shoot some video. I always want to help the best I can but my lack of literary skills makes it impossible to get across any understanding of what I try to say.
I gotta run for now, working on a brick chimney way up in the air and need to finish before the rain comes.
I'LL BE BACK!!!