Flint and Glass Knapping

[generalant]

I am going to try my hand a flint knapping. I live in a city so cant get flint very easily, i will eventually buy some online but want to try it first with glass, as i have read that it has very similar properties to flint, and it is cheap and readily available. When i move onto working flint i would ideally use traditional tools - antler flakers and hammer stones - the question is will these tools be suitable for working glass or would a copper tipped pressure flaker be more suitable?

Also how do copper tipped pressure flakers compare with antler tools when working flint? Are they better/easier to use?

Chers Al

 

[Dannytsg]

It really depends how you use the tools. Antler or copper will both suffice in doing the job, it is just more about what you have available.

 

[generalant]

ok, well i am buying online so both are avaliable

 

[Mafro]

As Danny has said you can use both copper tipped and antler for your pressure flaking.

The bottoms of beer bottles are great for knapping with, you can easily knock then our by putting a large nail in the beer bottle, thumb over the top and then shake the bottom will fall out.

You will need a pebble to abrade, and something to flake with. The real test here is that you will have a convexity on one side and a concavity on the other, and you are trying to make a nice straight tool.

Good luck, and I look forward to seeing your efforts.

 

[generalant]

Thanks mate, yeah i have seen quite a few videos on youtube which a pretty helpfull. I will post some pics up after iv had a go.

 

[Oldwoodyrock]

Glass works like obsidian. Flint is harder, and will require a stringer strike. What we knappers (US of A) call Johnstone (toilet cistern porcelain) actually works more like flint than does glass. The stark white can be 'fixed' with a bath of tea. Both copper, and antler work pretty much the same with the antler needing to be reshaped more often. The copper is less expensive than a good piece of antler. The Johnstone will be work like slabs, so have a look at videos on working from slabs. It is also a good thickness to learn with especially if you use percussion. I am active with the Puget Sound Knappers, and we have a pretty good web site with plenty of information on knapping.
Woody

 

[David Morningstar]

I prefer antler to copper, since copper was not used as a primitive material in Europe. They use it across the pond because Native Americans had access to large nuggets of copper metal around the Great Lakes and used it for tools and jewellery.

I started with beer bottle bottoms and it is a great way to get started. Use eye and hand protection and only work outside!

 

[Paul W]

I am going to try my hand a flint knapping. I live in a city so cant get flint very easily, i will eventually buy some online but want to try it first with glass, as i have read that it has very similar properties to flint, and it is cheap and readily available. When i move onto working flint i would ideally use traditional tools - antler flakers and hammer stones - the question is will these tools be suitable for working glass or would a copper tipped pressure flaker be more suitable?

Also how do copper tipped pressure flakers compare with antler tools when working flint? Are they better/easier to use?

Chers Al

There's no real difference in knapping glass or flint except glass is much easier as it is softer. However apart from slag glass it's difficult to find nodules so mostly you will be pressure flaking only with it. If you do get nodules it can't be hit very hard, stone works but copper or antler works better. Also as copper isn't authentic for glass a third option for pressure flaking is soft steel, which not only works well but is authentic. The American Indians and Australian Aboriginals both quickly moved from antler and flint to knapping modern glass using nails as soon as settlers arrived.

As for tools, many beginners start with modern tools such as copper as it is easier and graduate to stone and antler later. Copper is also quite authentic for old world knapping, many US videos on youtube will tell you only stone and antler is authentic, this is because copper was most likely never used in the new world.

I know of a flint source near Lyme Regis I could direct you to, never been there but other knappers have told me the quality is good.

 

[forrestdweller]

sorry if i sidestep...: how useful would glass arrow heads be for hunting (i guess most of you have seen the ""dual survivor"" episode where dave canterbury kills a turkey with a selfmade arrow with glass head....)?! i would NOT want to find glass splinters in my meat (in case the arrowhead hits a bone it should break...) ...

 

[Toddy]

That's a very good point (no pun intended )
Flint arrowheads shatter when they hit bone; we find enough carcases from meso/neo sites to be able to definitively say that they do, and that the beasts aren't always killed but escape long enough to heal too. See Star Carr for example.
It's difficult enough sometimes to get all the shot out of a bird, never mind trying to find wee slivers of glass.

On another note; flintknapping.....do it over something that will catch all those wee sharp flakes you don't want, so that you can shake it out into the wheelie later on. They're blooming sharp, they stay sharp, and they're still sharp when we find them thousands of years after they were discarded. They wreck the hoover if you do it indoors too and try to suck up the bits.

Interested to hear how you get on with it, and it'd be good to see some other folks examples too

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Oldwoodyrock]

Copper was readily available to pre contact Native Americans, but was seldom used for tools such as we do today for knapping. The Native Americans viewed copper as being too precious for mundane tool use with the exception of the Copper Culture people of 9000 years back in the Great Lakes region where native copper can still be found today. There people used copper for knapping tools, knives, points, and ornament.Native copper was also found in the American southwest, where it was on occasion used for tools, but more commonly used for decoration.
Woody

 

[ozzy1977]

Cromm (I think) on this forum has made some arrow heads from glass, there are pics buried deep on this forum

 

[forrestdweller]

That's a very good point (no pun intended )
Flint arrowheads shatter when they hit bone; we find enough carcases from meso/neo sites to be able to definitively say that they do, and that the beasts aren't always killed but escape long enough to heal too. See Star Carr for example.
It's difficult enough sometimes to get all the shot out of a bird, never mind trying to find wee slivers of glass.

i remember reading a book about stone age hunting and one chapter dealt with the pros and cons of stone vs. bone arrow and dart heads--- considering the large amount of stone/obsidian heads found worldwide it seems that the risk of chips in your diner were not that high....


most folks seem to use only the bottoms of bottles for glass knapping but i remember a documentary by MALCOLM DOUGLAS about aborigines using the SIDES of bottles for spearheads (and i saw samples in museums, too)- but unfortunately i cannot remember how they "cut"" them but it involved half-burying them in sand and then putting hot sand from a fire over the spot to be cracked.... does anyone have heard of this as well?!

 

[Toddy]

Flint stands out against bloody meat though, glass disappears....A&E have real problems sometimes making sure it's all out of a wound.

We can find a flake of mesolithic (tiny) sized flint in a muddy field, we can actually find where someone sat five thousand years ago and knapped a tiny flint nodule, traded from hundreds of miles away so it was valued, and they made the most of it, the remaining cores and debris are tiny, yet we struggle to find shards of glass, even when we know it's there.

Has anyone done any heat treating of flint ? I found a reference to it recently, wikipedia I think ?

To combat fragmentation, flint/chert may be heat-treated, being slowly brought up to a temperature of 150 to 260 °C (300 to 500 °F) for 24 hours, then slowly cooled to room temperature. This makes the material more homogenous and thus more "knappable" and produces tools with a cleaner, sharper cutting edge.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Paul W]

Both American Indians and Australian Aboriginals tended to use the glass insulators from the top of telegraph poles, in fact the problem of them climbing the poles and nicking them was so bad, telegraph companies left broken insulators around the bottom of the poles.

Also must be remembered obsidian was always preferred to flint as a material, often people living in flint zones imported obsidian to use instead. Prehistoric people didn't seem to mind glass shards in their food.

Here's some examples of American Indians glass ones from the early 20th century, they don't seem to he used clear glass.