Oil Flints :

[deerstalkert]

My bud in Warsaw MO can walk out in his yard and pick up what he/they call "ozarkarite"( right or wrong? ) .. I think it's the state rock??

anyway, he brought a small bucket full to a rondy we were at and asked me to try and knap some flints. A lot of them were
grainy and veiny .. one whack and they'd shatter. I was able to work him up a handful of useful flints. He swears he is still
using the first one I handed him??? just remember they sparked like all get out.. against a fire steel or in his lock..

oh , we put a few chucks in the coals of the campfire over night.. to try the heat treat?? most just crumbled into gravel..

Respect Always
Metalshaper/Jonathan

Mozarkite. very colorful chert.

 

[Metalshaper]

Deerstalker..

You are probably right, but around there its referred to as Ozarkarite..or as best as I can understand them..
his were not all that crazy in colors? mostly various hues of blues and greys.. I texted with his a while ago, and he said
the edge has blunted, but the 'flint' still sparks enough he wonders when he's gonna catch his sleeve on fire!!

Respect Always
Metalshaper/Jonathan

 

[deerstalkert]

Deerstalker..

You are probably right, but around there its referred to as Ozarkarite..or as best as I can understand them..
his were not all that crazy in colors? mostly various hues of blues and greys.. I texted with his a while ago, and he said
the edge has blunted, but the 'flint' still sparks enough he wonders when he's gonna catch his sleeve on fire!!

Respect Always
Metalshaper/Jonathan

i would love to play with some of that whatever it is. constantly searching for "the perfect knapping" material. wife says i have rocks in my head.

 

[DuncNZ]

Mankind have been mining and knapping flint for thousands of years. They made arrow heads, knives , scrapers axes and fire strikers . I believe the first gunflints were used in Snaplock firearms in the early 1500, s
I have found two books in my collection "The Manufacture of Gunflints " Sydney Skertchly , London 1870 and "Indian Trade Guns " by Pioneer press , with several different authors .
Both these books are informative on the gunflint industry and a good read.
P25 Skertchly writes " the stacks (of freshly mined flint) are covered with dried bracken and fir boughs to prevent the sun and wind getting at the stone, and cracking them or turning them milky white in colour, for only black flint is used for the best gunflints , although milky-coloured stone is equally good .
In the summer the stone is brought inside and worked at once, in winter it is stacked around the fireplace to dry. In summer, water is sprinkled on the stone to lay the dust, In Winter water is not sprinkled on the stone, flint being so hygroscopic ( it absorbs water from the air ) it is always damp outside
The Merchants will only buy black flints. The terms "best" and "seconds " were used to indicate the quality of the workmanship not the flint. Grey and spotted flints made less money than black ones.
In Indian Trade Guns, Arthur Woodward writes: That the French honey flint is more common in US archaeological sites , both American and British, than the black Brandon flints . He cites an order for "4000 black gunflints for Trading guns" and "1000 ditto for Fowling pieces " and another order for " 2000 common flints and 300 best flints "

C S Smith quotes "It would be well for the individual warehouses to halt the excessive desiccation flints acquire in dry places .IT gives them a short scaly cleavage which renders their edges more obtuse and diminishes their ability to detach particles of steel from the battery, which igniting produces the spark.

None of what I have read explains what oil flints were and why someone would pay extra for them. There is also mention of greasy flints and best flints.
I do know that the black flints I have do have a smoother oily /greasy feel than the grey ones.
The ship the Earl of Abergavenny sank of the British coast in 1805. Thousands of musket flints were found by an underwater club in, I believe, the 1980’s and made their way onto the open market, These musket flints are knapped differently from modern gunflints from Brandon, Gunflints knapped in the same way are found in Hudson Bay sites .
I purchased 6 of these flints from Dixie and used one in my Charleville to win the New Zealand musket championship, so they still work.

Flint is composed mainly of silica with a little alumina and iron on occasions, the other main constituent is water.
The flints I have had for 12-15 years are certainly dryer and more brittle than they were when I first purchased them.

As some of you have stated heating flint makes it easier to knap. It is obvious to me that the heating drives out the “stone water” and dries the stone. Fire tempered stone was NEVER used for making gunflints within the flint manufactory, some may have been made by individuals, but these are not within scope of this discussion.

I started this discussion with questions on oil gunflints, this still has not been answered.

I believe keeping new flints in water, or oil may stop them losing their stone water and prevent them from becoming more brittle and therefor longer lasting and better for shaving sparks .
The perfect material for knapping gunflints is a black flint known as floor stone .

 

[toot]

The lamp oil I used is not kerosene , it has no smell and a smokeless flame and gives a bright light . Kerosene was used in pressure lamps and cookers and is lighter weight than the stuff I have .

it has been refined and had a pleasing smell added. lamp oil also is made from paraffin wax. not oil at all. comes in red. blue. green, etc.

 

[Coinneach]

Probably not wise to ask! This is so nuts, you may not want to know.

Well how else do you think we raise garden Flints ?

 

[DuncNZ]

The excess flint from gunflint production was used for road making , incorporated in pottery clay , back filling the flint mines etc , the flint boulders the workers considered too small to bother with were used for walls of houses and gardens and ships ballast .