Flints

[Indy Durtdigger]

Time to pick up another rock.

I was afraid of that. From what I've gleaned from reading up on the subject it's either a very low quality piece or suffering from water damage and freezing.

 

[Nav]

So, using a wet saw works…sort of. For this experiment I selected a nice flat, waxy piece of chert that made the geologist pick ring. it was really hard.

This was the first tile saw I ever bought. It’s probably 25 years old, and I’m glad I didn’t use my good one. Chert ain’t tile. Even with the pump runnin’ it was throwing showers of sparks and the rock, blade and motor all got hot (never seen that).

I cut two spalls before there was nothing left on the wheel. It’s just a smooth wheel now with no diamond dust on it anymore. It was probably an old wheel that had done a half dozen bathrooms and maybe a kitchen, but it still had life in it, and now it doesn’t.

Out of that I got five flints of exceptional hardness. The one on the right is a bought English one For scale. They throw a massive shower of sparks. I’m sure there is also a commensurate amount of wear on the frizzen, but mine is a kit gun and I can always get a new frizzen.

In short, this was not a bad idea, but it’s not going to work with a standard tile saw wheel. The chert is simply too hard. I would guess you’ll get two or three spalls out of a wheel, and that sort of takes the shine off this idea. If you could find a wheel that would keep cutting you could probably get two dozen flints out of that one rock, which would be amazing, but I’ll bet a diamond blade that will cut flints and cherts would be prohibitively expensive, and even if you got some cheap Chinese wheels I’ll bet you would have to change them out every, or every other, spall. So 5 flints cost me a cutting wheel. No biggie, but I’m not doing it again.

 

[Nav]

Rocks are cheap, wet saw blades less so. Bopping them off is the way.

 

[Gun Tramp]

Great experiment and thanks for posting your results. Still trying to "bop" them off. Will Lord's video of his gunflint production makes me drool excessively so I practice my knapping before studying it.

 

[oldwood]

I'll do some research on chert. A friend's dad owned a large limestone quary , east Bellefonte , Pa.. His dad let him help mine the thick upper layer lime stone , to be sold to contractors building roads , etc. He said once , when they mined deep enough , and got into the chert formations , they couldn't sell the chert for road building , because chert would cause flat tires. The state highway builders were not legally allowed to use chert. Well , .......perhaps time to get a look at this reject chert , to see if it will spark a frizzen. Hmmm?

 

[IanH]

Great experiment and thanks for posting your results. Still trying to "bop" them off. Will Lord's video of his gunflint production makes me drool excessively so I practice my knapping before studying it.

If you're using laminar chert or river rocks, trying to emulate the blade spalling technique that Will Lord demonstrates is a sure route to frustration. Work a laminar piece with a heavy bopper like you were trying to make a big biface/preform but just work one end and cleave off flakes of opportunity all the way across, keeping a 30-45⁰ working face all the way across the rock. Sometimes I flip it over and work the other side for a while, it just depends on what the rock does.

I suppose Novaculite would cut well enough with a tile saw, it isn't all that hard but it is tough, difficult to describe but they make a lot of whetstones out of it so there's a way. Due to the relatively rare nature and expense of mined Novaculite, a person would want to maximize the yield anyway. Common river chert, not so much.

 

[bldtrailer]

you should be able to drive flakes off that larger chert using the flat you cut as your "platform" use a copper bonker(hammer) or an antler , a hard hammer such as steel will shatter the glass like chert. flakes are much easier to try to make gun flints for the first time knapper

 

[R Ellis]

So, using a wet saw works…sort of. For this experiment I selected a nice flat, waxy piece of chert that made the geologist pick ring. it was really hard.View attachment 246600This was the first tile saw I ever bought. It’s probably 25 years old, and I’m glad I didn’t use my good one. Chert ain’t tile. Even with the pump runnin’ it was throwing showers of sparks and the rock, blade and motor all got hot (never seen that). View attachment 246601I cut two spalls before there was nothing left on the wheel. It’s just a smooth wheel now with no diamond dust on it anymore. It was probably an old wheel that had done a half dozen bathrooms and maybe a kitchen, but it still had life in it, and now it doesn’t. View attachment 246603 Out of that I got five flints of exceptional hardness. The one on the right is a bought English one For scale. They throw a massive shower of sparks. I’m sure there is also a commensurate amount of wear on the frizzen, but mine is a kit gun and I can always get a new frizzen.

In short, this was not a bad idea, but it’s not going to work with a standard tile saw wheel. The chert is simply too hard. I would guess you’ll get two or three spalls out of a wheel, and that sort of takes the shine off this idea. If you could find a wheel that would keep cutting you could probably get two dozen flints out of that one rock, which would be amazing, but I’ll bet a diamond blade that will cut flints and cherts would be prohibitively expensive, and even if you got some cheap Chinese wheels I’ll bet you would have to change them out every, or every other, spall. So 5 flints cost me a cutting wheel. No biggie, but I’m not doing it again.

Try using some water soluble oil mix not water alone

 

[Nav]

Something to try for someone else who wants to give it a go. Reducing friction is key and that's a good idea. May even give you a little more life on your blade. I would use an old saw like I did, because I'm pretty sure using anything but water in a tile saw would void a warranty. A really good continuous blade is about $50, and should last a lot longer than the one I used (I used the one I had). The higher end blades will cut granite, which is pretty hard, but not as hard as chert I think...

 

[R Ellis]

I don't see how water and water soluble oil can harm any think from a warranty standpoint . But it should help with the sparks and lube the blade and keep it cooler

 

[Nav]

I don't see how water and water soluble oil can harm any think from a warranty standpoint . But it should help with the sparks and lube the blade and keep it cooler

I agree and don’t think it would harm anything on the machine, but I would still bet if you use anything other than water the warranty will get harmed. Not that I ever read the instructions…

 

[reddogge]

When I carve decoys I use a Kevlar glove on my left hand to hold the piece I'm carving. It does eliminate cuts which can be serious with the razor sharp knives we use. Maybe this would help the knappers.

 

[Nav]

When I carve decoys I use a Kevlar glove on my left hand to hold the piece I'm carving. It does eliminate cuts which can be serious with the razor sharp knives we use. Maybe this would help the knappers.

Awesome! Start a thread! Let’s see some pics! I have a few. They’re not fancy. My buddy makes them for the marsh, not the bookshelf. That said, the plastic ones are easier to carry to the blind.

 

[reddogge]

Awesome! Start a thread! Let’s see some pics! I have a few. They’re not fancy. My buddy makes them for the marsh, not the bookshelf. That said, the plastic ones are easier to carry to the blind.

I would but they kind of don't fit into the muzzleloading theme. I started carving in the 80s because those light plastic ones would lose their paint every year and sink when shot. They also bobbed around in an unlifelike manner.

 

[Crow Choker]

Talked with Track of Wolf today when they expect to have flints back in stock. Almost all they list on website are out of stock. Guy at Wolf advised they expect large order of English and French flints mid-September (plus/minus).

 

[Kansas Kid]

I just ordered a dozen at TOTW for prizes. Dozen limit though.

 

[Crow Choker]

See that dozen limit. See though on alot of the popular sizes out of stock and what I wanted. Not in great need at present but wanted to get extra's.

 

[okawbow]

I recently bought a batch of about 50 arrowheads on Amazon or facebook marketplace. These are made in India or Morocco by the thousands and usually are about $.50 each. I tried a couple and they spark well. They usually have at least 1 sharp edge and can easily be shaped to fit in the cock jaws. You can also go to artifact shows and by broken arrowhead pieces for less than a dollar that will work as gun flints.

 

[M. De Land]

Seems like flints are out of stock or backordered almost everywhere. Does anyone knap/make their own? There is a ton of chert where I live. Almost every stream bed is full of it. It is a is sedimentary cryptocrystalline rock just like flint. The vast majority of stone age points and tools found on the Ozark Plateau are pressure flaked almost exactly like flint points, and when I was a Boyscout as a kid chert is what we made stone tools from. I'm wondering if chert will spark a frizzen like flint, or if maybe flint is harder since it forms in nodules? I would have no idea where to go looking for flint, but I think I might recognize it if I found some. Or, I might mistake it for chert.

Has anyone else noticed there aren't many flints for sale? I bought some on Ebay, which I'm not overly fond of...

I make my own and use heat treated Keokuk chert from Oklahoma and Novaculite from Arkansas. I don't make blades from cores for my gun flints as they always have a ridge but rather use flakes from spawl debatage ( left overs) that are flat with no ridge to work or grind off.I was told heat treated chert would not be good but always questioning what I read or hear I tried it anyway and found it to work very well anyway. Better in fact than what I was buying from TOTW.
The Novaculite sparks really well but it is more brittle than the keokuk which sparks just as well in my guns. All three of my flint guns use the 3/4 x 7/8s flint size.

 

[IanH]

I make my own and use heat treated Keokuk chert from Oklahoma and Novaculite from Arkansas. I don't make blades from cores for my gun flints as they always have a ridge but rather use flakes from spawl debatage ( left overs) that are flat with no ridge to work or grind off.I was told heat treated chert would not be good but always questioning what I read or hear I tried it anyway and found it to work very well anyway. Better in fact than what I was buying from TOTW.
The Novaculite sparks really well but it is more brittle than the keokuk which sparks just as well in my guns. All three of my flint guns use the 3/4 x 7/8s flint size.

Good information. Heat treat or not probably depends a lot on the particular rock. I know some of the more grainy varieties of chert here are a bee to work and would greatly benefit from some heat, probably start at 350⁰ and keep going up in 25⁰ increments until it starts behaving. My understanding is the heat treat can make the edges more brittle and crumbly sometimes, or it can make them self-sharpen better but accelerate edge wear. Raw, white Novaculite seems to be the perfect balance of all things, staying sharp and keeping a fine angle on the edge as it wears but lasting for an extraordinary amount of strikes with zero attention from the shooter.