Whew, you know we're in the weeds when this show goes silent. Usually it's pretty relaxing to watch you work and talk, this one stressed me right out - haha!
Also a big lesson is stone cutting - Setting the blade 10deg would have avoided most of this frustration and yielded two MUCH wider pieces . (I understand this may have been impossible if the blade is merely 10", but I'd think whoever has jumbo flint nodules could justify buying a bigger saw)
I love how real your videos are. It's not always pretty and you don't hide your mistakes. It encourages us folks who haven't done this for a long time!
About 15 minutes or so in, I would have thrown the hammerstone back in the creek I got it from, and got the aluminum tools out. Your microphone made it easy to hear the exasperation in your aspirations. But at least there was no "snappening happening". Great video. You have more patience than I do.
Really like your vids and I learn a lot just watching even without your words ( which are still helpful). I notice a lot of egos in some of the comments. 🤧 Keep up the great vids!
Hammerstones are a wonderful tool once you used them for a significant amount of time. Most knappers knap with multiple tools or too many tools and aren’t dedicated to learning one tool at a time. Then when they pick up a hammerstone they struggle or make mistakes because they haven’t put in enough time with the tool. I think hammerstones get a bad reputation as being “difficult” because of this. It’s not the tools fault or the rock they knap. They just haven’t put in enough time with a particular tool to master it. For the last 4 months, I’ve only been using hammerstones to master that skill. It is hands down the most versatile natural tool there is and my favorite tool now. You don’t need antler in the late stages. I think that is a misconception. The flaking is so incredible and paleo looking with hammerstones. Softer smaller sandstones are phenomenal for finishing pieces in the late stage and looks so authentic.
Abo guys make it look easier than it is lol. The heaviest hammerstone you can get away with is the best option for first stage in my opinion and glancing type blows are usually a bad idea unless it's a soft hammerstone. Steep sturdy platforms are key.
@@KnapperJackCrafty you kind of don't in the early stage, on a piece like the one in the video I would use the square edge as my platform. Starting at the ends where it was skinny/narrow, I would use a hammerstone to send a flake all the way across the tip, like the first flake on a pressure slab, which would lower that area, then I would take another flake next to it, which would run further across, just like a pressure slab. On a rock like that I'd probably try to clear the whole face with each flake on the first pass and maybe even overshoot somewhere so that I've got something setup on the other side for the other face later. You can take removals from nearly vertical platforms with hammerstones. It's kind of counter intuitive if you're used to copper or antler. Even on very thin pieces, if I'm using hammerstones for late stage stuff, the actual platform is basically a steep edge and I'm stroking the flat face and not the actual edge, if that makes sense.
@@KnapperJackCrafty no sir, I am not that brave. If you got to flintknappingtips channel and look for "hammerstone reduction of Burlington" Marty gives a great example of hammerstone platforms and how nearly verticle they are. The trick is choosing the right weight, hardness and speed of hammerstone. His thinning strikes are from very steep platforms and the cleaning and blending flakes are often from less vertical and less stout platforms. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-65sQ0lZAS_c.html
@@flakesinyershoe8137 get some Georgetown and try knapping it in the way you describe. It's a much better learning experience than a thought experiment.
My favorite hammerstones are smaller ones. I go with what feels comfortable in my hands. I usually knap holding the piece in my hands and i just cant get the right angles with metal boppers. Ive gotten a whole array of hammer stones all the way down to one a size of a quarter
Nice bifacing. I percussion off the square edge a lot on those narrow piece like that. Kind of like working a square edged slab with pressure flaking but on a larger scale. I will get hinges and stack in the middle but I can thin the edge enough without losing width. Then I can zigzag with smaller flakes snd can cleanup the hinges and stacks. Or sometimes I will run blade like flakes from the ends down the ridges of the square edge to create a better bevel and then spall off the bevel.
Yeah, all good strategies there Curt. I'd like to be able to do that fancy edge flake removal all the way accross to create that nice bevel... but I end up hinging it in the middle more times than not. Oh well. I'll get some more rock and eventually I'll get it done with enough practice.
@@KnapperJackCrafty I hinge them sometimes too and have to come from the other end. Sometimes I get hinges from both ends and just have to work off the bevel until I get to the hinge.
You seem to do a lot of the things I wind up doing out of habit. (it makes sense as I have learned a great deal from you over time) I overbrush and overabrade a lot which makes taking flakes require a bit more force at the cost of accuracy. There is no need to be unhappy with loss of length from a piece that had such a long flat edge. In order to round that edge to match the curvature of the other edge the tip and base of the piece must be pushed towards the center of the face and anything from the center to the flat edge will be lost to create the symmetry between the two edges.
Yeah, some length needed to be lost for sure on this one. I broke a big piece in half just before this one in preparation for this video. I agree about the over abrading but I do it mainly to eliminate incipient cracks on the edges that can expand out of nowhere. I've gotten pretty used to swinging fast, so the accuracy is not really a big deal. My reading glasses are more of an obstacle to my accuracy. Good observations, though.
This video got me thinking, were those crescent shaped scrapers/points made from nodules split in half? Maybe someone just didn’t like sacrificing the length
Go from watching Marty Rueter reducing all sorts of rock with primarily hammerstones to this guy saying not to thin with hammerstones. Oof. Once you actually learn how to knap with hammerstones, and which types of hammerstones to use for which rock, you can basically chip a piece all the way to a finished point/blade etc.
I know how to knap with hammerstones and I know which hammerstones work with each type of rock, and I still do not recommend thinning with hammerstones unless you can live with 3 failures out of 4 attempts that try for width to thickness ratios better than 5 to 1.
Patrick, that hammerstone is way to hard for what you are trying to do, also you are not setting up your platforms correctly. I can hear in the video how the hammerstone is bouncing of the rock. That crushing that you got was from using the wrong type of hammerstone on the wrong type of platform.
@@KnapperJackCrafty I could jump out the window of the 2nd floor trying to fly, or jump out the 4th and get a longer hangtime, is that a better result or am I still falling? Im not attacking you, I'm just stating that better results come from better adaptation, application and preparation. With a lot more practice you could get better results, YES, because you will learn that the method and or application needs adapting to achieve the better results. Making the same mistakes over and over, while saying "with more practice..." is just learning to make that mistake better. How many times do you want to crush an edge, before you will realize, "hey, I got to do something different here"
@@KnappinStuff if it sounds like I feel I'm being attacked, I apologize. That's not what I was responding to. I was challenging the logic. Let's start again. Let's assume that not every knapper, in the past, had the best materials available for knapping in every particular situation. How would you go about learning how the ancient item was manufactured? Would you say, "You know, there are better materials and methods to recreate that item you're trying to replicate"? Or would you observe the development of his skill using his current materials and methods and see if he can produce reasonable duplicates? On a side note, it's funny you should mention falling. (I recall determinists using this reference...) Anyway...How many ancient life forms developed wings? Answer: the ones who kept jumping out "windows", not the ones who said, "screw this flying stuff".
@@KnapperJackCrafty You are trying to lock yourself in a box and throwing the key out. We have more than enough evidence to come up with a basic understanding of knapping. We will never know exactly how, but my point is the practical side and technique. In saying that there are a multitude of examples of "bad/not the best" material being used but the execution/ manufacture of the points made, are still within a fundamental method basics that stretches across all of flint knapping, like platform setup, not over grinding, right tool for the job. You were hitting platforms that are better suited for a hammerstone, and way over ground, with antler, and wondering why your tool is messed up after. Or, using a hard hammerstone to hit platforms that's better suited for a softer hammerstone. Its more than possible to get very large thinning/ initial reduction flakes with a soft hammerstone without breaking the hammerstone. More so on rock like Georgetown. And saying that hard hammerstones are all you seen, so its all they used is a statement made in ignorance.
