Thanks Jim, I have been trying to learn flintknapping for about two years now. And after watching your vids I am learning alot more about what I have been doing wrong. Keep up the good work and again thanks.
Stone tools work just as well as modern tools, but if you start out with modern tools and then switch over the stone tools will seem harder to use. Hammerstones can work really well and do things boppers cannot because of the different shapes the end of the hammerstone has. The hammerstone acts as an abrader and percussor, no need to constantly switch from bopper to abrader and back....
This hammer stone series was so informative, and inspiring! As a 65 year-old “beginner”, my hope is to transition over to abbo, and perhaps even entirely to hammer stone if possible, as it appears to be so enjoyable and quite satisfying. Thanks so much for your efforts in creating these instructional videos!
Hammerstones are under rated by most knappers, but once you get in a few hours with them you realize just how effective and versatile they are. Glad you like the series.....jim
Hi, thanks for continuing tot each us the way......i am sure you have spent many hours preparing for each youtube.... thanks for your continuing education! happy holidays brian f
@mcl141 Thanks everyone. Mike, I plan to do one on making an Angostura next and will use Texas chert. It all works about the same, the chert is tougher and a bit more forgiving, less likely to break if struck wrong. More abrading is needed on dacite for edge strikes, less for chert. Thanks....jim
@IamMohawk I have stopped using copper entirely. Nothing wrong with copper but it is hard to make the adjustment back and forth and the hammerstones are just plain more fun to use!
@historyhunkjoe I save all the flakes that are large enough to re use to make arrowheads, sort of paleo recycling! I box them up and post them on my website. Link is on my channel main page. thanks...jim
nice series jim, this cleared up alot of my issues w/ hammerstones. i havent been keeping my platforms steep enough!! wish i had known that before. thanks for the vids man, were you a teacher before you retired?
What do you do with your debitage Jim? I'm sure you have quite a bit of it! Do you save most of the flakes to make smaller points, or do you discard them?
My flint knapping skills are very poor. I've had a lot more practice with quartzite hammerstones than I have with pressure flakers or boppers. The copper rod pressure flaker that I made with a wooden handle I've been using more for bopping than for flaking. I guess I really need to find some more stone now as I've depleted the flint that I did have and some of the lumps just ended up breaking into chunks where they had lots of fractures in them (I guess because I got them from a ploughed farmers field). My flintknapping is pretty unsuccessful but I'm not going to give up because I love sitting over the park knapping stone.
Hang in there. My first points were thicker than they were wide and it took me months to get the hang of it with no one to teach me. I was amazed by the points I was finding near my house in Oregon and the knowledge that it could be done kept me at it. Of course they had the best teachers!
@@paleomanjim Oh I'll definitely keep at it. Iv'e been finding a bunch more flint from a farmers field that has been cleared of all the pumpkins that were growing in it and I didn't want to wander across that field while they still had crops growing there. Got about 4 reasonable sized chunks of flint today which hopefully I can get some nice flakes off of, and a few decent halves of flint cobbles which look promising. Your videos definitely help a lot, with the setting up of platforms etc. I just need to drum it into my head that setting up platforms can be a very important part of the knapping process.
