Field Dress A Deer Using Stone Age Flint Knife

[GGTBod]

In this video Will Lord makes a flint blade with one hit from a hammer stone on a large flint nodule and then seconds later uses this to process half a muntjac deer for us to eat that evening, you will be amazed how sharp a first strike flint tool can be.


I sat amazed trying to carve whilst watching as he field dresses / butchers the male muntjac deer using just a flint stone age (first strike) knife literally seconds after releasing the bladed edge from a huge nodule of flint rock.


This was shot whilst i attended the Primitive Carving Workshop ran by Will Lord and Scott Knight, it was a genuinely amazing experience and i can hardly wait for the next one in March which i have already booked a place on


I am in awe at just how sharp a flint knife can be, i have since learnt that this is because the sharp edge can literally be the thickness of a molecule, in other words this makes a high carbon steel cut throat razor fresh off the strop seem blunt in comparison.

If you can not handle seeing wild game being processed please do not watch this video.


[video=youtube;ZPuSDeZNJjk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPuSDeZNJjk[/video]

 

[Robson Valley]

Because of the structure of metals, you cannot sharpen steel to match the molecular edge of flint.
Flint makes magnificent edges for meat preparation. Just pay attention to where your meat (aka fingers) is.

There's no bullshort or bullshirt. There's no special instructions needed. Cut meat with flint.
What you might notice is that you can buy ceramic blades for kitchen prep.
Modern, 21st century wannabe flint blades. They are brittle and chip badly with frequent use.

Having said that, Britain has major deposits of big flint nodules.
I can't find anyone making and selling good, big, first-strike flint blades.

Anyone with plans? Please keep me informed.

 

[GGTBod]

Who knows mate maybe one day, currently at the start of my flint and stone and bone journey, i plan to get some serious one to one tuition on the knapping

 

[Dreadhead]

that's awesome, do any chips from the blade stick in the meat? I'm wondering if you get the odd bit of stone when eating like old style bread that has bits of the grindstone in it?

reminds me of my friend seperating seal blubber from the skin with a 10,000 year old stone stone knife he found freediving. it's amazing how efficient the simplest things are

 

[GGTBod]

No mate the blade was in the exact same condition of edge and sharpness at the end as it was at the start and still sharper than steel by a long shot, was told by an internet expert (they may actually have really been one for a change) told me this is because the flint knife edge can be as thin/thick as a single molecule

 

[Dreadhead]

aye that's awesome, i suppose it's also skill of the user as meat doesn't offer that much resistance. I'm sure if you kept hacking into bone with it you may have some fractures or chipping

 

[Robson Valley]

The soft texture of raw meat should have little or no effect on the flint edge as far as chipping off flakes is concerned.
Knapping an arrow head shows that process.
I looked at mine with a 10X magnifier and did not notice any chipping damage after, say, 30 minutes cutting.

In the past, I've bought some modern ceramic knife blades and they really do chip down to a saw tooth profile.
Ceramic blades have been used here for decades in th eplaners of timber saw mills.
They are no screaming Hello. At those speeds, they last about 3 times as long as steel.
A steel knife edge is so soft by comparison that it can be repaired with abrasives.

 

[GGTBod]

aye that's awesome, i suppose it's also skill of the user as meat doesn't offer that much resistance. I'm sure if you kept hacking into bone with it you may have some fractures or chipping

I think if you caught the bone a lot you'd probably chip you're edge but i never seen Will touch anything but flesh, he just used his hands and the manipulation of the joints to break the bones when needed, like you said the experience of the user, i imagine if someone had no butchering experience except the chicken leg on their sunday dinner and somehow managed to make a first strike flint tool and set about trying to get chunks of meat from a carcass even a chicken in cling film they'd be hitting bones left right and centre, saying that though we were all using the same flint edges to carve bones on the course, you'r edge did wear down after a while and needed touched up so you'd have to be canny heavy n cackhanded to mess you're blade up proper, just remembered i was watching Jake carve at a whale bone and a piece of 10000 year old bog oak with the flint, the bog oak was brutal hard to work by hand even with diamond hand files

 

[mrostov]

Whan you harvest a lot of wild big game, like deer, unless you have a butcher's power meat saw at home, you find yourself disassembling the animal the way our ancestors did. Animals come apart readily at the joints. Many modern cuts are somewhat the artificial product of the tools in a modern butcher's shop. Our ancestors saved the long bones for the marrow. The bones were cooked then busted apart with rocks.

The authors of Naked Into the Wilderness offer some great instuction on doing this. They teach this stuff to US Army Special Forces.

 

[Arya]

Thanks for sharing that video! Interesting to see just how effective that flint is.

 

[Robson Valley]

Paleo flint edges are not for bone-bashing. That's what stone hammers are for. Brain-tanning hides.

"First-Strike" paleo flint edges are remarkable for food prep, meats in particular.
I encourage everybody to try them, as I have, you are in for a very pleasant surprise.
Vastly superior to any steel edge. They break along molecular edges, unlike steels.