Flint storage

[hwalker]

I was going thru some old (1972) issues of The Buckskin Report. Lots of interesting things there, including maybe the first article complaining about the 'new' inlines and articles moaning that the new TC rifles are unsafe and not 'traditional'.

Anyway, to keep on topic, in a couple of articles, the authors recommnend storing your extra flints in water, in order to keep then from getting too dry and brittle.

This was the first I had heard of this practice. Is there any validity to it? Does anybody do this?

 

[Black Hand]

Flint is a vitreous stone, and I fail to see how storing them in water will help at all. The nodules have a chalky coating that may be affected by water but not the underlying flint. Sounds like one of those things you hear.......

 

[Birddog6]

No.
No.

I tried it 10 ? years ago. Put some in water for over a year, took them out & they worked just exactly like the dry ones.

However, wayter is cheap ( in some places) and it doesn't cost much to put 5 in a babyfood har & let them sit for a year & try yourself.

:thumbsup:

 

[hwalker]

It didn't sound right to me either, that's why I asked.
I guess that was just one of the 'old hunter's tales'.

Thanks for the responses

 

[Halftail]

I got a buddie that stores his flints in a mason jar full of water.I thought it was kinda kooky too but he said he knew of at least 1 more person that does it.

 

[SCATTERSHOT]

May be somethin to it. I have heard that opals (the gemstone) need to be stored in water so they won't crack, but never heard of flints stored that way.

 

[No Deer]

I have also read about people storing them in light oil. I don't think that helps anything either. I can't remember for sure, but seems like someone did a test on them in oil and or in water (maybe the bevel bros.?) and found that it really did not affect the life of the flints.

 

[roundball]

I've seen and heard that before...and while I'll say right upo front I'm only in my 4th year for Flintlocks, it has never sounded like anything more to me than an old wives tale.

I don't think Flint is formed in or by water, and it's not found in water, it's mined from large deposits found in the ground...plus, I think Flint in those deposits has already lasted for 1000's (millions??) of years...so I don't understand how Flint would need to be "put into water" to make it last longer...figure my bags of Flints will do fine for the little bit of time I'll have them around.
:results:

 

[BLAHMAN]

I've heard of it before, but I don't believe in it. It's probably an old wive's tale (I wonder if there are any old 'husband's' tales?)

 

MUST BE A CAPIE!!! :blah:

 

[Flint1]

I have four flintlock rifles, each of which uses a different size flint, and each size is stored in a sealed container filled with water. I honestly believe it prevents the smaller flints from chipping prematurely, and helps them last longer. I first heard of it several years ago from an elderly member of our club. He told me in the old days, Indians would bury their flints in the ground to store them, allowing them to get moisture from the ground. I only know what he told me, but I think mine do last longer now.

 

[TANSTAAFL]

I've seen and heard that before...and while I'll say right upo front I'm only in my 4th year for Flintlocks, it has never sounded like anything more to me than an old wives tale.

I don't think Flint is formed in or by water, and it's not found in water, it's mined from large deposits found in the ground...plus, I think Flint in those deposits has already lasted for 1000's (millions??) of years...so I don't understand how Flint would need to be "put into water" to make it last longer...figure my bags of Flints will do fine for the little bit of time I'll have them around.
:results:

Flint is formed in water, that is where some of the nodules come from. I pick up chert nodules on the Rim here in Arizona, some of the nodules are perfect shapes of sponges, certain mollusks and such when they died in their holes in the muck when the prehistoric oceans were dying, the concentration of silica then displaced the animals and were later transformed into quartz flint and chert (same thing).

Other types of flint such as Alibates was formed in (and is found today as ridges and ledges) the shallow seas.





Below excerted from: http://www.discoveringfossils.co.uk/flintformationfossils.htm



"How did the flint form?



The majority of silica found in flint nodules is biogenic (produced by living organisms or biological processes). Although today's flint nodules are inorganic, the silica that formed them was originally sourced from the remains of sea sponges and siliceous plantonic micro-organisms (diatoms, radiolarians) during the late cretaceous period (60-95 million years ago). Flints are therefore concretions that have grown within the sediment after its deposition by the precipitation of silica; filling burrows/cavities and covering other sponges and marine creatures, before dehydrated and hardening into the microscopic quartz crystals which constitute flint. "

 

[roundball]

Flint is formed in water

I may not have been as clear as I could have been...I was under the impression that my Tom Fuller Black English Flints are mined from large deposits of Flint material that are not in or under water...thought that people using tools literally excavated this flint material out of these deposits (like a coal mine) and knapped them into things like gun flints, etc.

Assuming that's true, I was trying to make the point that my Black English Flints have had no current (within the past 100's or 1000's of years?) dependency on being submerged in water for the longevity they seem to have today...subsequently, I couldn't understand the requirement that they should now, after the fact, be stored in water for longevity's sake.

In addition, understanding the gun flint manufacturing process as I've read it, there was no mention made of any water storage requirement at any time during that long process of mining, knapping, storage, shipping, distribution, retailing, consumer use, etc.

Is it your understanding that Black English Flints are indeed mined from flint deposits submerged in water, and as a result should continue to be stored that way after the fact?

::

 

[albert]

I have a friend that is one fine flint knapper,and I was talking to him a couple of weeks ago about storing flints in water,and what he told me was that when he picks up flint out of creek beds,he can control the knapping a lot better while the rock has the natural moisture in it. After the stone drys out it works a lot different,and he keeps some of his best specimens in water while he waits for time to work on them. :m2c:

 

[Halftail]

Yup, It was the same guy that has the cheap Smokes!

 

You can never find a geophysisist when you need one!

Where's Mike Roberts? He built a career around this kind of stuff.

Of course I have found that a lifetime of education and research means nothing when one is dealing with superstition.

And why is it that one never finds both pieces of a broken arrowhead together?

And did the Indians keep a babyfood jar full of water in the bottom of their quivers?

And did they keep the sheaths for their stone knives soaked down and soggy?

Inquiring minds want to know.

:crackup:

 

[sherpadoug]

I have heard that when the English shipped flints over to the American colonies for their troops they shipped them in barrels of dry sawdust. You would think the Army would know how to care for their flints.

My bit of hearsay is better that your bit of hearsay! :blah:

 

[TANSTAAFL]

"And did the Indians keep a babyfood jar full of water in the bottom of their quivers?"

From what I have read, there is no recorded history of Indians (as we know of them) making stone arrowheads for general usage, (all the smaller beautiful stone points found today were made by their ancestors thousands of years before for use in the atlatl, not bows) Indians did use the small points they picked up off the ground. (one could say Indians were the first arrowhead collectors)

By the time of the Europeans coming, Indians had long since switched to hardwood, bone, fresh and salt water shells and such materials for arrowheads.

 

[Gary]

Now we need a grant writer to get a grant so someone can scientifically prove one way or another that flints in/out (take your pick) of water work better than flints in/out (pick opposite of first pick) of water.

All this work to better advance and understand 17-18th Century technology. Wonderful, isn't it? :thumbsup:

 

[Stumpkiller]

You're both correct! Flint is formed in water, or through the action of water (percolation of minerals), and in the 450 million years or so since the English and Appalachian deposits formed have alternately been above and below sea level. The chalk cliffs are the bodies of diatomic plankton laid down when trilobites were scurrying about.

Think geologically. The last ice age, 10000 years ago, is just a blink away compared to when the surface rocks formed.

No sense soaking flint. The water will not add any advantageous qualities even if it does penetrate. Moisture in an opal is what causes them to shatter with temperature changes.

Now, soaking them in WD-40 might displace the water and prevent a flint from shattering in sub zero temperatures. :crackup: