Any of you guys make your own flints?

[Albanyco]

For some reason I think it would be cool to make my own flints. I've done some research and there is a really cool chert in this area called normanskill that is green, but hard to find. I've made a couple of rock hunting treks and did manage to find some spark able material....works with my flint and steel. However the pieces I found are fairly small. I am in the Albany NY area.

 

[Alden]

Chertainly not! Then again I'm not one to Troy too hard.

:rotf:

 

[coloradoclyde]

Right now that is all I am using.
They are not pretty and don't last as long as commercial flints but they make smoke.
They don't have to look exactly like commercial ones to work.
Flint knapping is an art. It takes a lot of patience....and some Band-Aids. :grin:
I bring home every nice piece of chert I can find.

 

[smoothshooter]

I make a few occasionally, since I live in an area where good chert/flint are around on top of the ground in nuisance proportions. In fact, in some places a person could pick up a five gallon bucket of these rocks in five or ten minutes.
Most of the time I use a tool made for flint knapping that is a one inch diameter and four inches long cylindrical plastic piece with a rounded copper end piece of the same diameter. The useable pieces that I end up with are more properly called spalls, rather than finished flints. Only about one in thirty pieces that I knock off are good enough to use after trimming around the edges a little bit.
That is a low success rate, but when you consider that one can knock off fifteen or twenty spalls in thirty to forty seconds, it can be time well spent.
They are not usually pretty, but they work, and throw excellent sparks.

 

[Albanyco]

That's pretty cool, the stuff I have been finding is only 2 or 3 inches wide at most, and after watching some videos on YouTube I doubt it will fracture nicely enough to make a useable flint out of it. It however works fine with a firesteel, and I broke that out today to start a fire to burn some brush. Something satisfying about pulling fire from a rock you found yourself. :thumbsup:

 

[M. De Land]

Yeah, I flint knapp arrow points and many of the thinning flakes I keep and make gun flints with. I don't expect to be buying any more as they are easily shaped by pressure flaking and cleaning up on a green wheel for sharpening carbide tools.
Many of the black flints I used to buy from TOTW had to have the humps ground anyway before they could be used.
I particularly like the Koy-kuk chert from Oklahoma for gun flints as well as arrow points.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Don't try it. It is impossible. I know, I have tried. :wink: :redface: :rotf:

 

[ike]

I spend my winters in Hot Springs Arkansas. The Arkansas Stone knife sharpening stones are called noviculite (spelling is not correct). This stone knaps well and makes good flints. I have not used a purchased flint in 4 years. If you want to try some, I will ask the person I get my stone from If I can give you his name and you can see if he will send you some to work with. I brought four 5 gal buckets back with me to learn knapping. The scraps will be given or sold for flints or fire starting. It does take time and practice to get the stone to break the way you want. You Tube helps but working with the stone will tell you more. The skill comes in with reading the stone before you strike it.

 

[Rifleman1776]

makes good flints.

Ike, welcome to Arkansas.
I have been in touch with the novaculite producers in HS with the thought of selling their flints. I'm glad you have good results with them but I gave up on the project because my experience has been very spotty. And, his prices are very high. I did a little market research and found no one wants them. Wish they were more reasonable and accepted. It would be good for Arkansas to sell popular flints. But that doesn't seem to be happening. For sharpening, though. Novaculite is great. The best.