Making my own flints

[bldtrailer]

OK for some of you (Richard P.& M. De Land thank you) know I've been trying to make my own flints (no good flint I can find in Pa) so I broke down and order some from Kentucky Flint works (A great helpful guy) and with Richards input wacked out something that might work(and 3 cuts 2 blood blisters)

 

[bldtrailer]

 

[bldtrailer]

still need to figger out how to thin out the fat flints/flakes

 

[JoJoLesh]

I just ordered 12 from Log Cabin, but I am interested in making my own someday. Where in PA are you? I am about an hour south of Pittsburgh. I don’t know if we have better flint here.

 

[bldtrailer]

closer to allentown

 

[JoJoLesh]

closer to allentown

I just checked the Geo survey map of WV, and it looks like I will not be finding any wild flint around here.

 

[David Veale]

I believe flint is typically associated with limestone deposits -- no limestone in WV? Here in SW michigan, I find a significant amount of chert in our farm fields -- a result of glaciers plowing everything down from up north during the last ice age. The chert I find, however, is usually in small pieces that would be hard to get a good shard off of.

 

[JoJoLesh]

I believe flint is typically associated with limestone deposits -- no limestone in WV? Here in SW michigan, I find a significant amount of chert in our farm fields -- a result of glaciers plowing everything down from up north during the last ice age. The chert I find, however, is usually in small pieces that would be hard to get a good shard off of.

I am pretty much in the middle of the Marcellus Shale Formation. Lots of shale, so much that it looks like I have to do raised garden beds because digging requires a pickaxe.

I will start bringing a hammer with me on my hikes though.

Where in Michigan are you? I just moved down here from East Lansing, and my Father still lives in the Mitten.

 

[David Veale]

I am pretty much in the middle of the Marcellus Shale Formation. Lots of shale, so much that it looks like I have to do raised garden beds because digging requires a pickaxe.

I will start bringing a hammer with me on my hikes though.

Where in Michigan are you? I just moved down here from East Lansing, and my Father still lives in the Mitten.

I'm about 45 minutes south of Kalamazoo, near the town of Three Rivers. The one time I was in WV, I was too young to know where I was or what a state was, for that matter. Sounds very nice though, based on what I've gathered. I grew up in Washington State, and sure do miss seeing the mountains.

 

[user 34300]

still need to figger out how to thin out the fat flints/flakes

I put the rod brass rod in a vice to steady it for the indirect percussion technique. I then put the tip on the shelf you want to use the thin the material and give it a wack.

 

[Tobie]

A fairly short distance from our home is a small community named Fly, TN. Every year, they host a "knap-in". A friend and myself went there two years ago and I was amazed at the craftsmanship of those folks. They all professed to get the chert from some small streams in Perry County- I have no direct knowledge of this story except that they all had literally ten to twenty buckets of chert. What amazed me was the guys telling me what the arrowhead was going to look like before he hit it the first time.

 

[bldtrailer]

here's part 2>>>---> thanks Rob
making my own flints has been a learning curve
made my ishee sticks from rifle cleaning rods , bonkers from copper pipe caps and antler,and rocks hammer stones

 

[bldtrailer]

 

[bldtrailer]

from this

 

[bldtrailer]

lots of sharp waist

 

[bldtrailer]

the texas flint seems to spark nice and hot

 

[Dibbuk]

I really envy those of you who have flint locally.

 

[Bob McBride]

One of my pastures had an NDN village for hundreds of years. It's 100 yards from our creek and on high ground. Whenever we disc the field, I wait until a rain cleans the top layer and walk the field and find hundreds of arrowheads, spear tips (sadly mostly broken from the plow), shards, hide scrapers, tools, etc. It's an amazing thing I never miss, year in year out. Another pasture on our farm right along the creek housed the Ohio Volunteer Militia during the WONA (ACW) and I metal detect and find tack, buttons, etc. Gotta love a place with history.

 

[RB POWELL]

Do any of you know if there is suitable flint in East Texas? In my area we have a ton of what the locals call Iron Rock (multi-colored, blotchy) and heavy. Don't know if that would work?

 

[Dibbuk]

Hit it with a flint striker, and see if it sparks?