Prisoner Shawn Woods: "So whatcha in for?" Random Prisoner: "Murder... you?" Prisoner Shawn Woods: "I reused an old liquor bottle." Random Prisoner: "Daaaaamn! you hardcore!"
Native American wisdom says that a good way to protect yourself from all the tiny shards that are produced and end up being a hazard through this process is to coat your hands and arms in a thin layer of mud, so as they embed in the mud and can be washed off when you're done. Not sure if this is something useful to anyone but I thought it was interesting.
Hey I'll think I might try that when working with small RAZOR-SHARP metal-shaveings-- it SURE beets the HELL OUT of fishing them out with a knife & forcepts~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANKS truck-loads; Nefarious M.A.C.!!!!!!!
Great to know that about the Native Culture . I am learning more about my Native Mohawk ways . Not sure if this is a Native Mohawk way but it sure is something good to know about . Thanks for sharing it .
I first stated flintknapping using broken glass. I later graduated to obsidian to make my projectiles. I use deer horn for initial flaking and shaping. I use various sizes of brass rod for pressure flaking. I have various other tools that I have made for different styles etc. I also use eye protection as these flakes and slivers can travel some distance and can be sharper than a scalpel. I try to wear gloves but even with leather gloves I have received cuts one which was more serious than most. I am still looking for cobalt blue glass and dark blue glass like the old Vicks bottles were. In order to make a lot of projectile points and save material I used my rock cutter to slice pieces of obsidian and bulk glass and shape them from here on they were done the old way. By the way I only break newer bottles as I also a collector.
They couldn't monitor the person who bought the bottle, so the message meant it was illegal to refill it. Not necessarily to repurpose it for something else.
Its sort of like a "do not remove" sticker on a pillow. Back in the day, people were smart enough to know that it meant "don't refill with food-grade material for commercial purposes."
Man... A brittle arrowhead like that must cause some SERIOUS internal damage on whatever it hits. Softest thing i've ever flintknapped was some chunks of obsidian... this must have taken MUCH more patience not to screw up.
I was wondering the same,like,do you have to play the,'pick out the invisible bloody glass game',as you prepare your meal?If you missed one tiny fragment,it could be your last meal.
Good job on the arrowhead and arrow. A thought just occurred to me, since they did use there mouth to chew and moisten the sinew, i wonder if they could do a DNA test on artifacts where the wrap is doubled? The second or third layer should have DNA preserved in it.
hey, shawn. do we need to use only very old bottles? cure for poison rashes(oak, ash or what ever plant oil you are sensitive to) use 92% rubbing alcohol. a $2 remedy. use it as a flush to disolve the oil and wash it away. works for me 100% of the time. my facebook name is gary ligon
To prevent reaction to poison oak/ poison ivy, clean up areas that might have been touched by it with a damp wash cloth with dish soap on it, lots of pressure on the cloth, the rash is caused by oil from the plant, there's about a four or five hour window to clean up before it's to late
Protip: Wear safety glasses. I know this is intended as a sort of "survival situation" kinda thing but that kinda makes the "wear protection" even more important (there's no emergency hospital in a survival situation to deal with a glass flake getting in your eye or something... And as you said, they're razor sharp tiny bits of pain and laceration.) That said... Some of those flakes could be used as emergency blades if they were big enough (like a scalpel if you wedged them into a little twig in case you ever had to cut out infected flesh or something.)
thank you thank you, this was next on my list. My eye is on the ubiquitous TV tubes everywhere around here in every dumpster or abandoned seclusion without security (esp. in counties where dumping is expensive and always charged even 1 time a year). And I kept the bottom of a vintage water bottle nice and flat but thick. I can make my share of performance-oriented bows from varieties of materials but have never developed the knap knack
Nice to see someone with the patience to practice such a skill. For those who wonder what folks did to pass the time before modern civilization filled it with crap -- they made things by hand that took time and accumulated experience to do right, and didn't waste resources if they could help it.
Native people in Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and various islands of the South Pacific actually made quite a few arrow or spear points this way. They didn't see much trade in goods like firearms, but stuff like glass bottles often washed up on shore ready to be repurposed. Remembered reading an article about it and it was pretty interesting.
+SwampCritter No real loss. Those bottles are not worth anything. There are way to many in existence. There are millions of bottles with this on it. So not even a collectable.
how? there were millions, clearly it was made not too long after prohibition ended so the amount of alcohol being made and bottled was at a high and that specific bottle couldve been made anywhere in the 20 or so years that the print wouldve been required
all I could think of while watching this whole video is, I might learn this during a zombie apocalypse. good to see I wont be alone in class during that scary, boring time. :) maybe the RE trailer is on my mind.
They went from printing it in the glass to Federal Stamp seals over the bottle cap. Bars had to pay to get a special stamp for each bottle and a permit to sell alcohol on premises. And a county permit as well. And another permit if operating in a municipality. Now you know why mixed drinks are so freaking expensive.
If you shower after exposure to poison oak, ivy or sumac and use lots of soap you will avoid the allergic rash. The soap removes the plant oils which cause the rash.
The federal prohibition was against people refilling the bottle and selling it like new. Even today, if you're a licensed liquor manufacturer, you have to have original containers, each with a tax seal (per ATF standards). Each original bottle is sealed so that the consumer knows he/she is getting stuff straight from the manufacturer (who is inspected by the feds for safety, disease, contamination, etc). It's illegal to refill the bottles with left over booze, wine, milk whatever, and pass it off as 'straight from the factory' stuff. Not so much a problem today, but it was one in the past. Just pointing this out to anyone who was wondering WHY this warning was actually ON the bottle.
The federal law about not reusing or re-selling this bottle was meant to criminalize the practice of filling an empty JB bottle with home made crud that might make you go blind, and selling it for the same price as the name brand. The rest of this video was pretty good.
It's always interesting to see the techniques of the past put to modern use. Many traditions have methods that are labour intensive, but give reliable results.
Beautiful arrow head. In prehistoric times you would have been a valued member of the tribe. Read "Ishi in two worlds " fascinating read rather heart breaking to as Ishi tried to come to grips with a world he had no place in (ours). He was the very last of his kind and a window on a world and culture we can only conjecture on.
He explained it in the video. Predates NATO. Note, people used to (and still do) refill bottles with cheaper, sometimes dangerous alcohol and "resell" it. That's most likely what the message is about. (Not that the people who *do* that would care.)
Glass is a really deadly material to make bullets out of. When its breaks on the target it sends hundreds of pieces of ridiculously sharp shrapnel into the target that are then invisible to radar and also visually.
Love your videos! I'm 23 from Chicago and I really would like to learn how to make arrowheads like you. Hopefully when with a little practice I'll be on my way. Your videos really opened up a passion for flintknapping and tool making. Keep up the awesome videos!
it beautiful how dedicated you are to respect an old craft and do it the way it was meant for, this is the first video i have watched, and it was just really cool to think of the indians who not only enjoyed makeing this craft, but spent much time on it, just as a piece of art, because they had to to provide food for the family, and it was just really interiesting to watch you creat the arrow head and make something for wjat was intended back in the day.... side note, what happens to the glass if it breaks off in the rabit, is is hard to get out??
Shawn, do you know why the feds prohibited reuse of whiskey bottles? In Colorado bars could be shut down for having empty bottles laying around. People were watering down booze, or making their own booze and refilling old bottles and selling it as legal taxed whiskey, so the empties were supposed to be destroyed immediately upon emptying them. After that law was instated even pre-prohibition bottles were subject to this law, and the propensity for old whiskey bottles to be used for target practice in Colorado makes those old bottles rather rare and valuable. You knapp a mean point my man. We had a friend who made copies for the Denver Museum of Natural History for public display. An armored truck showed up at his home and he spent about 2 years making copies of some genuine points. He was so good he could do the old Paleo point blood groove single flake technique. I have never seen anyone that could do bleed out grooves like this old guy. See Clovis or Folsom points for the blood grove.
This is very cool and I'm thankful to see the how-to on making this. I do have one question that popped into my mind instantly, "Why don't you score the bottle with a hard rock before breaking?" Wouldn't this help to give you more large usable pieces?
I found this exact same bottle for sale on eBay for $2. Even if it was worth $1000 I would still smash it to make an arrowhead because I made way more money on this video.
^.^ Reminds me of a video where a gold bar was pressured flat. They got a good bit from the video, and ultimatly the gold didn't stop being gold. :p Theres the money, but there also the side of value. Entertaining 1 000 000 people for 9 min is well worth $1000 in my opinion. Even if just half of us have realy watched it all, that would still be around 75 000 hours of entertainment If im not killing math. XD
Re-use as stated in the Law means that the intact container may not be re-used for its original purpose. Otherwise, recycling would get you jail time. Make all the arrowheads you like.
That bottle was only worth 1 penny. Cracks me up when people get obsessed with the value of one item. Or when you have an old artifact that you don't pal on selling and you clean it to bring back its original beauty. To me all of that is nonsense.
"Use" didn't mean making reusing to make arrowheads. They honestly had nothing in their mind about arrowheads when writing that message. How do I know? Well, I was there, I am the one who wrote it... trust me we didn't mean literally every use. Now that I think about it, you are simply using that bottle by even holding it... QUICK someone arrest this man.
I always enjoy your junk knapping & you turned out a nice little point don't know how y'all knap that glass without gloves? I found me a piece of Johnstone gonna give it a try here soon been either looking for rocks or trying to work on projects again love how you used the elk sinew nice job on that arrow & glass pointy
A thing of art, a work of beauty! Your videos are very inspirational, after completing an arrow I get a feeling of self satisfaction knowing that if worse comes to worse I will never be without a weapon. Thank you for sharing your skills and achievements!
Dude, I'm not an archery guy, but damn, I give you massive props for knowing how to make arrow heads out of old glass. that's crazy. I don't think I would have ever believed that you could make arrowheads of old glass bottles. Why do you have to use an antler, out of curiosity? Something special about the antler material, or could you do this with other tools?
Because they aren't made anymore. Actual collector are probably fist pumping over this video, though, because that very scarcity from people breaking them drives up the value of their own collection.
They are hoarders not collectors, Why didn't you guys go dig it out of a dump and shove it into your junk pile you call a "collection." Don't get me wrong collecting noteworthy stuff is cool, not a bottle with hundreds of thousands in circulation that is worth 2$ and then getting all bent out of shape over it
If you're gonna use modern materials, don't limit yourself to neolithic tools. LOL get a cutter and score the glass before tapping..you'll get more raw material for your efforts.
hey shawn. I recently read an article that claimed modern bottle glass was superior to obsidian for making arrowheads. What's your opinion? I was always under the impression that obsidian was stronger on a molecular scale
This is really cool, I've never seen a glass arrowhead made this way, despite being familiar with flint knapping. I'll say though, undamaged bottles from the early 20th century are very rare and it is a shame to have destroyed that artifact. There are people out there who would pay good money for such a bottle, either for a collection, as a period piece, or a variety of other reasons including historical preservation. Perhaps next time you'll take into consideration other sources for glass to make arrowheads instead of destroying a rare artifact of American history.
that glass arrowhead is far more valuable and appreciated now than it was when it was just a bottle because before it was a product mas produced now it's unique
Aw I hate when broke that old bottle is like you dont see those types of bottles anymore but well I guess you can buy some of those old bottles on ebay or something.
