First knapping class a waste

I was not happy with my first knapping class and here is why: I felt
we were not getting enough instruction on wise use of the obsidian
rocks we had to buy.

The instruction was basically to smash up the obsidian and when we
saw a piece that vaguely looked triangular, to use that piece to try
to make an arrowhead. We were introduced to hammerstones, Ishi
sticks, and abraders.

But, despite what were apparently annoying questions on my part about
how to best use the material, how to look at the rocks and devise a
plan to use as much as possible to make multiple tools, etc. no such
information was forthcoming.

"Oh, that's a good piece, you can use that one!" Why is it good, it
doesn't look anything like an arrowhead, what and how would you use
it for? Hello, hello? [Etc., etc.]

So, I apparently recovered some ancestral memory from my ancient
group, the Cheap White Bastards. They strongly disapproved of just
smashing obsidian rocks some four inches (4") in diameter to make one
(1) arrowhead a little over one inch (1") long. One of our charter
members, Og, mentioned that Mrs. Og would give him heck if he spent
the afternoon ignoring her shopping list for a scraper, three small
replacement blades for her knives, and a small saw to cut tendons and
ligaments – as well as whatever points he could make – from the
precious obsidian for which she had to trade her favorite necklace.

After viewing several hours of YouTube videos, I begin to see that
there are knappers who study their "rocks" and plan what they can try
to knap out of them. I want to learn more about how to "see" this
potential and how to try to maximize the resource.

I am working with a few others to do an obsidian harvesting trip in a
couple months so I can get rocks with which to learn. Between now
and then, I would like to get better educated. I may take another
class, but I am most likely to try to get some private sessions with
some relatively charitable knapper.

Am I off-base? Suggestions?

I don't think that your off base at all, when you sign up for a class, then you expect to learn things, and have someone smart enough to answer your questions as an instructor!

lol...yeah, but he didn't necessarily say he wanted to learn it to save his life, maybe he just wants to learn it for fun?

-jace

+1 on what Ace is saying. Garbage is everywhere. That being said though it is possible to use knapping to turn a broken bottle into a more practical knife.

The flint knapping I've seen done (which is only a little) usually starts with a large piece and the person doing it would try to hit it in such a way that a piece would cleave off the right size for what he was making (in the examples I saw it was an Ulu style knife both times)...I imagine this takes a ton of experience and a little luck.

Though just to play devils advocate with myself, the natives of these lands of ours made a LOT of arrow heads in sizes as small as a dime. They were traded so much it was practically a form of currency. Maybe smashing the obsidian was a valid technique? Use what was there to make appropriately sized arrow heads? Somehow I don't think it was in their nature to be wasteful but then again I've been to Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump here in Alberta and that wasn't exactly the most frugal use of buffalo.

I think the same applies to all primitive skills. Hundreds of years ago the poor b******s had no other choice but to become good at these skills, but we have the option of being able to do more. You will need to devote a LOT of time at these skills to become really good and that’s time I can utilize better doing something more practical. I would much rather spend an hour practicing navigation, Field first aid, or emergency signaling (like how to properly use a signal mirror) than flint knapping. I made a bow drill once and after a few hours of cursing and swearing I managed to get a small ember to light my tinder pile. I was happy that I could do it once but I have no intentions on spending countless hours of my life becoming an expert at it. When I go in the field I take plenty of fire making stuff and although anything is possible, it is highly unlikely that I will use up all my matches, lighters and sparking tools leaving me at the mercy of a bow drill. If so I at least have a very basic working knowledge of one. Same applies to flint knapping, as I bet there are lots of other materials available I could use for a spearhead or knife in an emergency. I would call it nice to know, but not really necessary.

That being said Dweste. If you like flint knapping then flint knap away and to hell with what anyone like me thinks of it.

Just be sure to keep us updated on how your classes are going

dweste,
I took a class last summer for archeaological field work, one of the things we did was called 'experimental archaeology.' We learned how to find the right material for stone tool use and a very basic way of reading the ridges of the stone and how to hit along the ridge to get a good basic core.
In that session of the class I never got beyond getting that first good core, so I know your frustration. I really wanted to learn more about going from core, to "blanks", to an actual tool.
If you don't want to keep buying obsidian, learn what the local material is around the area you live. I know that for the area I live in, Northern Colorado, the easiest material to gather is chert.
There are books that help to give instruction on what to look for in the material and how to get the most use. Flintknapping: Making and Understanding Stone Tools by John C. Whittaker is a good book and so is Old Tools-New Eyes: A Primal Primer of Flintknapping by Bob Patten. I have used both of those books as reference myself.
Good Luck

There is a Nor Cal web-site that offers Flintknapping supplies and instruction:

http://www.obsidiandesigns.com/index.html

They might be worth a look. Their location is not far from the Sacramento area.

They also list meetings and workshops which they are participating in that might be of use. (many are in the Grass Valley area)

"...can get rocks with which to learn..."

I once read that porcelain is an acceptable substitute for obsidian when practicing, you might look around for an old broken toilet and what a chuck off of it.

We have a 55 pound chunk of pure black obsidian at home, once debated breaking a piece off to work with, but just couldn't do it.

If you are anywhere near central CA or western NV, there is a place, called Obsidian Dome, near June Lake. Not pure obsidian, it has what looks like granite in it, but you can take all you want...

Thanks as always for the replies.

My survival interest in knapping is because: (1) there is so much garbage typically available, including porcelain and glass, and (2) enough knappable rock (flint, chert, obsidian, sandstone, agate, chalcedony, etc.) enough places that, (3) it seems as sensible to learn to identify and use it in the field, as it does to learn to identify and work with edible and useful plants and animals.

Field expedient tools and weapons could make the difference, yes?

I personally have had very good luck with the book Naked Into the Wilderness. They have a charpter on tools and IIRC just on flintknapping. I finally got around to actually doing it with 'just some rocks' that I found by the RxR tracks near my station. When you read the material, you find yourself 'looking' at the stones differently....you start to look at them and think about "HOW" they would split when struck.

I was able to cleave quite a few stones and even managed to use one to cut apart a leather boot.....I was impressed and I wasn't even 'really trying' to get really good results....just playing to see what I could do.

Hope it helps.

I agree knapping should begin with exposure to the wide range of possible tools that can be created. Knowing your goal is darn helpful to getting there. The sole focus on arrowheads in my first class did seem far too narrow.

I forgot to note earlier that another reason for my interest in knapping is its use of animal horn, bone, antler, teeth, and hide. My interest being the fullest use of harvested animals - as well as rocks.

Sorry to hear of your unenjoyable class. The book Flintknapping: Making and Understanding Stone Tools

is worth looking into. Another book I can not recall the title of mentioned using the bottom of a glass bottle for practice. It also stated obsidian and manufactured glass fracture at 100 deg angle from point of impact or during pressure flaking. As of yet my skill at making anything useful is very poor. I so recommend getting a piece of leather from a craft store as a protective surface while working the obsidian. I often get a sliver of it between my hand and the leather though. Just my 2cents worth.

You may want to look into some primitive skills type clubs whear you can go hang out/practice the stuff you are interested in learning. Just a thought.

Joe

For me, flintknapping is a cross between any skill requiring hand-eye coordination and an art form.

The closest thing I can relate it to is shooting pool...when I was single, I played at least six nights a week, at least an hour or two (usually more) a night, for several years. I got to a level where I could read the table, read the angles, plan the leave and several shots in advance, and I had confidence in my ability to make a shot. Fast forward, I'm married, I shoot pool maybe twice a year and it's embarassing and frustrating. No eye for the angles, no touch, no muscle memory, no confidence.

Flintknapping is the same - you've got to do it often enough to be able to read the stone, see the angles, plan several steps in advance and strike with confidence. That said, like drawing or painting, it just seems to come more naturally to some folks than others... I'm not one of them. You need to have access to A LOT of rock to get good at it. To be really good, you need that inner artist gift thing.

To get by in a survival situation, it wouldn't take much at all. Knowing what kind of rock to look for is most important - in the midwestern U.S., most creeks and rivers will have chert or quartzite cobbles - they ring or ping like glass when you tap them with another rock, rather than clunk or thud. You can make very useable choppers and flake knives with very little skill at all, with no other tools than what you find at your feet. I thought Taurus' ammo box knife was pretty cool, but given a choice (and depending on the situation), I'd personally be able to make cutting tools much faster and easier out of stone. As the saying goes, YMMV.

I don't remember exactly where you're from, but nearly every part of the country has some stone you can use. Obsidian is fun to work with, but I never thought it was very forgiving - I always like playing with quartzites best.

Use Goodsearch and look for 'knap in' for you state or region - what you spend on tuition for a class might be better spent on gas driving to a knap in. You'll meet folks with a wide range of skills and a variety of stone and tools, often times for sale or trade (especially if you have access to hides, sinew or antler).

Unless they are serious, commercial knappers, most knappers I've ever met are more than willing to give you tips, talk you through a crude biface, etc...

The best general text I've seen (disclaimer: don't know him/no financial interest, etc...) is called The Art of Flintkapping by D.C. Waldorf, his web site is here A few readings of that gave me more insight that many hours of randomly breaking rock. Bruce Bradley has a video that is pretty good at explaining the theory and thought process involved in working the stone. He's both an archeologist and a flintknapper and really understands the change in knapping technology over time and space, if you're into that kind of thing... He's also one of the best knappers in modern times. Disclaimer - he's worked with our lab in the past and teaches at a university in England we have an exchange program with.

Anyway, didn't realize I'd rambled this much. Knapping is theoretically very easy, controllable and predictable; in practice it really p*sses me off. In a good way... Hope you have better experiences with it in the future than your first class. BTW, who taught your class and where? What was the instructor's background? Just curious.

I took the same class as Dweste did and throughly enjoyed myself..then again i wasn't expecting to make an arrowhead my first time out. I like how the stone feels in my hands. So maybe it's just that we have two different ways of looking at it. I would actually like to make me some tools and get some glass, and other materials to just play with to see what i can do with it. I also thought i was going to bruise from it but didn't. Maybe just different touch with the stone, but i don't know. I could see useful things that could be made out of odd shaped bits.

I enjoyed the company and didn't care whether or not I made an arrowhead, so long as I got a good start on understanding knapping - for me that didn't happen. My fault, the instuctor's fault - at this point, who cares.

I did learn from the comments of a couple friends in the class who had participated in a knap-in a few weeks earlier. Their clear, concise tips, and quick demonstrations pointed me in a different direction from the little formal instruction, especially in how to initially "break" the rock.

The combination of my frustration and the apparent waste of material just did not sit well. My interest in knapping remains strong, my experience in the class did not dimish that, and I will just move on.

I think it's kind of a bummer that you had to start off with obsidian before you learned to visualize a piece of stone and see the possibilities within.

When I started flint knapping I took a course from a local primitive skills group. The instructor started the group off with glass, johnstone (porcelain HAHA), chert and some other types of stone that he provided. However, before even getting that far we learned about theory, terminology, different ways of flaking and abrading, and more, so there was a basis for understanding and knowledge for learning to build upon.

It sounds like you were in a class where the teacher didn't understand teaching.

Also, starting to learn flint knapping with obsidian that you had to pay for strikes me as similar to learning to drive with a Lamborghini. I know it would make me apprehensive.

Well... Maybe that comparison is extreme, but we don't have obsidian locally and it costs a bit to get a decent amount of good sized quality knappable stones shipped here. Chert is somewhat less expensive because there's a small supply within the state, but we have a number of glass workers that will give us slag for free or very cheaply, and we can go to a number of places and pick up porcelain for free as well. When it's free, you don't mind whacking it with a hammer stone just to get a feel for what's going to happen when you strike a platform a certain way.

dweste,

I must thank you for quite the humorous post! Seems that there may be some trouble in the Og family.

I don't think you are off the base tho in what you are asking for. Talk to the instructor to see if more info can be forthcoming.

Mike

Thanks, everyone!

I have added your suggestions to others made by some other equally generous knappers. I am assembling YouTube and other video-type resources and hope to add those you recommend.

Being a stubborn guy, I used my frustration with the class as motivation to use the Internet to spend many hours trying to figure out knapping. I wish I had done that before the class!

I have just heard from my instructor and it is my hope our failure of communication will just become a funny story to tell in the future. I suggested we start over and, with some more personal instruction, I think there will be a happy ending to this story.

I hope that you two can work it out.

Keep us informed.

Hi dweste,

http://quicksilverscreen.com/watch?video=32455

It takes quite a bit of skill, practice and a lot and lots of obsidian and luck to knock out something like a clovis point. There must of been lots of 'swearing' and 'pass me another new bit over, this one is just going to have to be an arrowhead' 15,000 years ago.

Thinking about a trip to the Davis Creek area north of Alturas CA to try to get a load of obsidian; maybe with a shot at Glass Butte OR. Already going to be in the Redding CA area for a few days around June 21.

Any tips on how to recognize the goods in the field?

Thanks.

"...Any tips on how to recognize the goods in the field?..."

All of the black obsidian we found near June Lake was on the surface and shining black, easy to spot...

June Lake is where?

East side of the Sierra Nevada Mtns, near the middle of the state, just off of CA Hwy 395...

The last naping class i took wasn't very good either. All we did was sleep.

Second class went much better. Even though I heard the same instructions, I knew not to follow them literally.

I learned more by watching what was done by the instructor and others, and from remembering what I saw on YouTube. Several participants used techniques they learned from different instructors, some completely the opposite of what was suggested.

I now appreciate these classes as just an introduction to an activity which is open to considerable experimentation and divergence of technique.