Welcome to my Guide to Knapping you own flint Arrowheads. In this post, I'll be concentrating on very simple technology, requiring very little skill, or practice to get right. Not Brilliant, Not beautiful, but effective little points.
My Tools, consiting of one Anvil Stone, for resting the flint on, when I don't want to rest it on my legs. One Large Hammer Stone, One Small Hammer stone/Grinding stone One Antler Flaker, though a decent hard wood would do. My Brother has one consisting of some soft iron alloy. a few screw drivers for when I want a narrower point of a flaker, and the Fingerless glove, simply an old gardening glove, with the finers lopped off, allowing me to work the flint in my hand without burying shards of flint into it.
And the flint, abundant where I live, and used and traded for thousands of years as a valuble commodity. The first Indsutry was flint Manufacture, Axe Heads from one site end up across the continent.
This flint I've been working for a while, and so I have a place to strike Flakes from. However, with an unbroken nodule, you need to open up a face. the best way is to strike off one of the ends, at a weak spot.
Like that.
Then you need to prepare the face to have a flint flake hit from it. The way I do this is with my small hammer stone, and I grind and gently hammer the area I'm going to strike, making it a striking platform. I do this working at a right angle to the direction I intend to strike the flake from
Then, using the large hammer stone, and the narrow edge, I will strike down wards, and slightly outwards, to produce a flake. If I wanted a Large flake, I'd use the wide edge, or even use it horizontally.
This prodices a flake, and already you can see it looks good for a small arrow head. The ridge running along it is undesirable, but I actually misplaced that strike, and so I'm happy to get any usable peice
Using my pressure flaker, I'm going to start shaping the head, I use my fingers to hold it against the ball of my left thumb, and using the flaker, I push both down and in, producing a flake on the undeneath of the flint. I can turn it over to produce flakes on the other side.
Here you can see the scalloped shapes this leaves behind in the worked flint. By Nibbling away like this at the flint, you can easily produce a simple arrowhead.
After a Mornings work, you can produce quite a lot of points, here are a couple of mine, and a few of my little brothers. However, the top one was not produced today, it's generally the same teqniques, but takes a lot more practice and time. I've ended many a day in frustration trying, but after a lot of trial and error, and patience, and the advice in Book, DVD, and person of a local flintkanpper John Lord, I have managed my pride and glory.
And here are a few attatched to Arrow shafts. If I could afford sinew I would use sinew. If I could reliably produce birch Tar, I'd use Birch tar (apparently a thrmoplastic. But I can't find anyone who knows how Neolithic Man did it). They are attatched with Dacron b500 and Hotmelt glue.
Here is me and my little bro, an Activity porbably done the same thousands of years ago, probably very close by. a few years back a bus fell through the road only a hundred yards away. a Watermain had leaked dissolving the chalk supports left by flint miners way back when.
well, I hope you enjoyed that.
Health and Saftey notice: silicosis is a nasty way to die. Don't work with flint indoors. And Always wear glasses or other sensible eye protection.
Archeological notice: Flint is impossible to date except in the style of it's working, and the layer it is found in. Don't leave your remains around as a puzzle for future archeologists. Thoguh Last Riflemans suggestion, of leaving a penny in with them, that way they can be dated accurately is brilliant.
I didn't know anything about preparing a platform. Thanks!
