Chert

[Brazos John]

I have seen coal dust explode...

My Grandfather, Walter Magee, survived a coal mine explosion that killed 4 others.
Lansford No. 6 Colliery Explosion (miningquiz.com)
People think bad of OSHA, but this doesn't happen nearly as often anymore.
Again, I digress from chert...

 

[GrandLakeHunter]

Chert is flint. The only distinction is to how it is found in the earth. Flint, as we often know it, is usually found as nodules, sometimes in chalk pits. Chert is found embedded in the earth in many locations. I'll admit I have never found chert that we suitable for knapping into gun flints.

I would agree with the comparison and add the usual color differences between the two.

 

[SamTex1949]

thanks for all the great info here, on what to look for ! Going to be on road trip soon from East Texas down through
hill country then over in the College station area .

 

[Ohio Rusty]

If you are looking for flint for making gunflints, I have quite a bit. I'd be willing to let a good size handfull go pretty cheap. The shipping is hateful now. $9.50 for a small flat rate box. I also have alot of larger sizes great for fire steel strikers. Most of the flint is flintridge, zaleski black, georgetown, kentucky blue, texas flint, etc. A mix of flint spalls from all over. All are great sparkers. Let me know if you want gunflint size or larger spall size or a mix of both.
Email me at: [email protected] if you are interested.
Ohio Rusty ><>

 

[toot]

View attachment 134232
Here is an old nodule I found along the lake where we live north of Manhattan KS. I assume it was used by someone in the distant past to make flint tools. I’ve not tried to knap anything off of it because I don’t want to damage it. I’ve not found other flint like this one.

now that is ONE HELLEVA PRIMITIVE GOLF BALL!!! I wonder what the# 1or 2 WOOD look's like???

 

[OhioHawkeye]

I would agree with the comparison and add the usual color differences between the two.

And a few more differences having to do c with temperature it is formed, and surrounding rock.

Flint is a sub category of Chert. That is, Flint is chert.

But all Flint in North America comes from two areas. All other is chert.
Two such formations exist in the US – one in northern Texas called the Alibates Flint and one in eastern Ohio known as Vanport Flint. (Flint Ridge in Ohio, East of Newark)

and the Flint Hills region out west?
Yup, all Chert.

 

[JBrandon]

Chert is flint. The only distinction is to how it is found in the earth. Flint, as we often know it, is usually found as nodules, sometimes in chalk pits. Chert is found embedded in the earth in many locations. I'll admit I have never found chert that we suitable for knapping into gun flints.

Chert and flint are essentially the same, SiO2 silicon dioxide with variable impurities.
The usual distinction is flint forms in chalk, chert in limestone. If chert is just in the earth, it has eroded out of the limestone it formed in, usually many millennia ago. But that's not a very meaningful difference and not used consistently.
Variable hardness - the harder the better for gunflints. British and French flints, some material like the Georgetown shown below, the Flint Hills stone, many others in US.
NO, coal is a non-starter, too soft for gunflints, doesn't really flake either.
Glass/obsidian does flake, is all SiO2, but too soft to make decent gunflints.

 

[deerstalkert]

" Glass/obsidian does flake, is all SiO2, but too soft to make decent gunflints. "
sure can make some pretty display pieces though! somewhere i have a red/black obsidian flint i mounted in a display rifle. now to find it while i'm thinking about it!

 

[Crew Chief]

Thanks for the photos.
Is that from Georgetown, Texas, or is the name just a coincidence?
The Hill Country is mostly limestone, which is pretty soft, so I don't know if there is any Georgetown chert around there. I would love to find some in the wild.

John, I live not too far from Gatesville. There is chert all over the place here. I find it in smaller pieces along my road bed where they brought in crushed limestone for road base. I have seen it in larger pieces along county roads. I have some in the 32 piles of rock I have picked up on my runway. It is rather common. I mentioned knapping some chert for flintlocks to a friend from church who was a old flint knapper and he said to come out to his place and he will teach me. Told me to bring some samples of flints to see what size to make. I will take him up on it soon.

 

[deerstalkert]

John, I live not too far from Gatesville. There is chert all over the place here. I find it in smaller pieces along my road bed where they brought in crushed limestone for road base. I have seen it in larger pieces along county roads. I have some in the 32 piles of rock I have picked up on my runway. It is rather common. I mentioned knapping some chert for flintlocks to a friend from church who was a old flint knapper and he said to come out to his place and he will teach me. Told me to bring some samples of flints to see what size to make. I will take him up on it soon.

bring me some samples and i'll teach you too!
i have to import all i use.

 

[Brazos John]

There is chert all over the place here.

My son lives in Ft. Worth, and maybe I can take a longer route to go through Gatesville on our next trip. Do I look for the chalky rocks like in the previous photos, or do I watch for something else?

 

[deerstalkert]

look in any river bottoms and in cuts on the road. it can be just sticking out of sandstone or just lying in the river bottom.
don't stay for any extended time in Gatesville!

 

[Brazos John]

Thanks. Might be easier than I thought.
Yeah, Gatesville was where they sent bad kids that were too young for jail.
I guess they apprenticed in Gatesville before learning the skills to get them to Huntsville.

 

[deerstalkert]

wimmens, don't forget the wimmens!

 

[Tanglefoot]

I could use some flints —- rifle, pistol, and musket size — and I have plenty of chert but I’m unable to make my own. It’s a skill I never mastered. Also, between “clumsy” and “arthritis” I’m barely able to scratch my …. Well, never mind. While I’m posting, several folks commented about finding chert
in the Texas Hill Country. I’ll tell you where to look. Travel I-35 between San Antonio and Austin. Look to the west and you’ll see a long ridge of land that pretty much parallels the Interstate. That’s the edge of the Edwards Plateau.
Back in prehistoric times, that ridge was the source of raw material for the local trilbes including the Commanche, Apache, Kiowa, and others and a lot of other tribes came from other areas to trade with the locals for flint/chert.
If that’s too much trouble, take any of the narrow back roads that have wide gravel shoulders. A good part of that “gravel” will be chert.

I had the pleasure of going to a rendezvous near Enchanted Rock, which is a geological formation that was considered sacred by local tribes. I found what a lot of folks call an “arrowhead”- a perfect projectile point of the size called a dart point, about 2 inches long. I carried it in my gear for years, carefully wrapped in a scrap of buckskin. Some seasons later I was in the Big Horn Valley in northern Wyoming and got acquainted with a local there, a Crow man who had lived in that area his whole life. We were talking and he said that there were caves in the mountains around that he knew that had petroglyphs that had never been seen by whites, and that there were also rock formations and mineral deposits that geologists had claImed don’t exist in that area. Then he saild he had something for me.
He gave me a slab of pink stone, maybe 8 inches by 12 inches and 2 inches thick. He said “Take that back to Texas with you and put it in your yard. When somebody asks, tell them it came from here and they’ll tell you that’s not possible.” I reached into the truck and into my pack basket and found the little rawhide parflesch where I carried the dart point and gave it to him.
“Now you have a gen-yew-wine Commanche flint point from Enchanted Rock in Texas. Show that to the next geologist and tell him and I’ll bet he won’t believe you about that either.”

 

[Rock Home Isle]

Collecting Flint
Here I am, in Texas visiting my son as he starts his new job. Wow what an amazing area.

My wife is fairly supportive of my crazy ideas. We drove around the Georgetown/Leander area looking at road cuts and construction sites looking for flint.

I probably collected about 40-50lbs of flint. It’s hard to find the dark grey high quality knappable flint. I did find some…

This has been a fun trip. Great people, wonderful community

 

[Kansas Jake]

Good haul and now have fun. Use gloves, eye protection, and probably a face mask so you don’t breath silica dust. ( bad stuff for the lungs)

 

[smoothshooter]

Kind of recently, someone posted about a vendor that sold chert gun flints. I’ve looked around and can’t find the post. Can anybody help me out? Thx, E…

Chert is very common where I live in SW Missouri. Matter-of-fact I hit a big piece in my yard with the lawnmower 3 days ago that irritated me because I had just sharpened the blades last week.
In a lot of places around here it is found in nuisance quantities in pastures laying on top of the ground. If the grass is short they can be seen from the road 50 or more yards away. A lot of them are from softball to football sized.
I have had decent luck busting out spalls that are not pretty, but spark very well in my flintlocks.

 

[deerstalkert]

Collecting Flint
Here I am, in Texas visiting my son as he starts his new job. Wow what an amazing area.

My wife is fairly supportive of my crazy ideas. We drove around the Georgetown/Leander area looking at road cuts and construction sites looking for flint.

View attachment 136455
I probably collected about 40-50lbs of flint. It’s hard to find the dark grey high quality knappable flint. I did find some…

This has been a fun trip. Great people, wonderful community

i don't see a bad piece in the whole pile, but that one in the top right corner with the bands is intriguing! might be a challenge to knap but would be a beautiful point or knife .

 

[Rock Home Isle]

i don't see a bad piece in the whole pile, but that one in the top right corner with the bands is intriguing! might be a challenge to knap but would be a beautiful point or knife .

Wouldn’t it be nice if I had any skill at all?