Flint storage

[flintlockmdj]

Never heard of this before. The only advantage I can see to storing flints in water is the padding water would afford when moving the flints. :imo: :m2c: :results:

 

[brubincam]

i keep my flints in a ziploc baggie in my gun cabinet

 

[soquili]

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: albert

I'm a flintknapper, although I've worked mostly in obsidian. The knappers I know who work mostly in chert (flint) say that if you find a flint stone in a river, store it in water till you get ready to work it. The moisture content makes it easier to work. Flint that has been above ground for a long time is harder to work than flint freshly dug out of the moist ground. This has to do with being able to control the flake and the force of the blow needed to do so. Storing flint above ground and outdoors in cold climates affects workability too, due to the stones' moisture content and the freeze-thaw cycle. At a knap-in here in central Texas, I saw a guy working on a large spall of Georgetown blue flint, and when was removing the first series of flakes to reduce it, water gushed out from a water-filled void in the stone. That was a spall from a road excavation cut, not from the river.

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.

Tanstaafl, :imo: Native Americans did use flint arrowheads into historic times. Check here for info on the Alibates flint quarry in the Texas panhandle:
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/AA/bba1.html
"The flint was utilized for the manufacture of chipped-stone tools from the time that man first inhabited the Southern High Plains, beginning with the Clovis cultures of about 10,000 years ago, through the Archaic and Neo-Indian stages and into the Historic stage, perhaps until the 1800s."
Here is an example of a Comanche hide scraper with a flint blade collected in 1869, from the American Museum of Natural history:
http://anthro.amnh.org/anthropology/data...2650&site=P
And here's an Eskimo spear with a chert (flint) blade, collected in 1899:
http://anthro.amnh.org/anthropology/data...1810&site=P

Atlatls (spearthrowers) with 4'-6' darts with larger 2"-3" stone points were used on this continent for hunting and war until the arrival/invention of the bow and arrow at around 200AD. Smaller points (1/2"-1") that most collectors call "bird points" are actually arrow points. Tie one of those bigger heavier 3" points on an arrow and you'll shoot yourself in the foot! :: The 11,000+ years of atlatl use vs. 600-800 years of bow-and-arrow use explains why there are so few small arrow points found, relative to larger atlatl dart points.

While Indians did use bone and other materials for arrowpoints, including gar fish scales here in Texas (Karankawas), and blunt wood arrows for small game, they were still using stone points that they had knapped themselves well into the contact period with whites. After contact, metal trade arrowpoints soon replaced stone ones as they were more desirable for a variety of reasons.

Some Native Americans may have "recycled" found arrowpoints - I have an artifact found in Oregon that shows the age-related patina on the tip removed by re-sharpening flake removal, and patina takes centuries to form. But some nations had taboos against using anything from dead folks. If you need a stone point, why spend hours or days looking to accidentally find one, when you can knap one out in about 15 minutes?

Back on topic - I don't know that it would help gunflints to keep them stored in water after they are knapped - perhaps the reference originated with raw flint flakes to be used for knapping into gunflints later.
Patsy

 

[robinghewitt]

Skertchley says that flint making is done in 4 stages, drying, quartering, flaking and knapping. Stone from the pits will be dried in Winter but may go straight for quartering in the Summer. "The quarry-water however is always got rid of". Water might be sprinkeld over the blocks, "to lay the dust". He also says that the "the flint being so hygroscopic that it is always damp outside".

From my own observation, flint left on the surface goes gray with a zillion internal flaws and cracks, I think it's frost damage.

 

[TANSTAAFL]

I think you (or, maybe I do) may have a misconception of early North American atlatl points? Atlatl dart shafts were light, thin, flexible, and acted like a long spring. When under thrust they would work off effect of the atlatl spur thrust first by flexing, then in launching, push away from the spur.

When atlatas of early North America reached the height of their development, weight of atlatl dart projectile points on average was 3.3 grams (0.116 ounce) to 7 grams, (0.247 ounce) hardly massive amounts of weight.

The Eskimos you quoted, were using large dart projectile points against sea mammals at very close range for launching heavy, almost harpoon like darts.

http://216.109.117.135/search/cache?p=At...=1&.intl=us

http://www.metric-conversions.org/weight/grams-to-ounces.htm

http://www.metric-conversions.org/weight/ounces-to-grams.htm

 

[DavidP2211]

All - I am a geologist with over 25 years experience dealing with rock properties so I can probably speak with a scientific basis on whether flint should be stored in water or not. I think the bottom line is that it doesn't matter. Flint is pretty much pure silica (the same thing that makes up clean sandstones). Silica doesn't care if it is wet or not - it has the same strength regardless. The incident of water gushing from a large flint that was being worked was from a water filled void being encountered and allowing the water to be released from the void - it had nothing to do with water coming from the pore structure.

I even double checked with a geek friend of mine that has a PhD in minerology (who works for some unnamed government agency designing thermal shielding for the navy's nuclear program). If anyone can say whether it makes a difference - he has every resource in the world to figure it out. His answer is the same as mine.

Oh well. Sorry.

 

[Twisted_1in66]

Hi all,

Storing some types of flint in water (for instance, English and Danish flint) actually lowers their hardness. It can reduce their lithic grade scale by .5 to as much as a full point. So, I don't think it would helpful to store your English flints in water. That makes them easier to knap, but doesn't make them last longer.

 

[redwing]

Store them in your hammer jaws, thats where they do the
most good.
PS/ never had a flint spoil! :redthumb:

 

[roundball]

Store them in your hammer jaws, thats where they do the most good. PS/ never had a flint spoil! :redthumb:

This Internet Forum is really something...we keep getting every imaginable, interesting topics coming up all the time...and what a diverse group of occupations, skills, experiences, perspectives, etc, from all around the world...the Internet is really an incredible tool, making all this possible
:redthumb:

 

[WRussell]

You said it, Roundball!

One of the old masters said on another list that newbies getting into ML gunsmithing can learn more in a week than he was able to dig up in decades.

It's been said that the Sunday edition of the NY Times has more information in it than most folks saw in a lifetime 200 years ago. And the Internet!!! It's incredible, but real.

 

[sniper68]

All but the one in my rifle, I wrap indivudially in aluminul foil just to protect them against whatever. :m2c:

 

[tg]

I believe that in Thomas Mails's "Mystic Warriours of the Plains" there is one refereence of a white man who mentions learning the method of making flintstone spikes for the ends of the arrows when living with the Comanches, the post Columbian era rapidly saw the end of stone tool usage buy most NA peoples but some used it longer than others due to location and attitude toward the whites, it is a very simple craft and it is esier to fasion a point from obsidian or flint than from shell, or bone or most other material.

 

[Zonie]

You said it, Roundball!

... And the Internet!!! It's incredible, but real.

And to think we have Gore to thank for all of this. :crackup: :crackup: :crackup: :crackup:
woops! I forgot again...No Politics...but I just couldn't resist.

I think I'll throw in with the rock expert.
Seems to me the only thing storing flints in water will get you is some really clean flints.

 

[Halftail]

When I first got my flintlock I had about 60 flints a loose in a deerhide bag of sorts.An older Guy with much buckskinning experience told me I should make a type of "wallet" that I could store each flint seperatly.
The flint thing isn't going all that well for me and I still got them all loose in that bag. ::

 

[JackAubrey]

Storing flints in water won't help but it certainly doesnt hurt them.A few years ago I bought some original brown Bess flints from Dixie Gun Works that were salvaged from a sunken ship off coast of England.I think the ship was the Earl of Aberganny.Well, she went down in 1805-1806.I bought 12 of them and couldnt pass up using one in my bess.Worked perfectly and none the worse for 200 years under salt water! :crackup:

 

[Twisted_1in66]

Storing flints in water won't help but it certainly doesnt hurt them.A few years ago I bought some original brown Bess flints from Dixie Gun Works that were salvaged from a sunken ship off coast of England.I think the ship was the Earl of Aberganny.Well, she went down in 1805-1806.I bought 12 of them and couldnt pass up using one in my bess.Worked perfectly and none the worse for 200 years under salt water! :crackup:

I presume they were dry by the time you used them? When using the "soak it in water trick" to make it easier to knap, you would dry the flint off the outside of the flint with a towel if you liked, but you didn't let the flint dry out completely, or it would be just as hard as before you soaked it.

What a kick to get flints that were made for the British troops! Were they black, or were they brown like the French flints of the period?

 

[JackAubrey]

Hello Twisted,Yes,it was very interesting shooting an"original" flint,as it were.Even though my Bess is a modern repro one could not help be cognizant of the history .I will not pretend to understand the practice of flint knapping,save for resharpening,so you have me at a disadvantage,my appologies.I only used one,the others still remain in my gun safe.If I leave them about my wife may move them or worse!Unfortunately,Dixie no longer carries these,presumably sold them all.I have heard of other sources from time to time.Best regards,Jack.

 

[thomas]

I bought some of those same flints from DGW's, weren't bad flints & ended up using all of them.

Thomas

 

[Flint1]

I also bought three of those flints. I have mine in a riker case with a red velvet background and the printout which accompanied them hanging on my wall. To answer an earler question, they are black, although I have seen amber flints supposedly from the same wreck.

 

[WRussell]

I thought about buying some, just for fun, since I had nothing they would fit in. Since then I have picked up a couple of blunderbusses and now the flints are gone. Alas.