Stone Points and Blades
The following are stone points made with a variety of materials and tools. I do the majority of my knapping with abo tools. This includes hammer stones, moose antler billets, deer antler billets, and deer antler pressure flakers. However, I sometimes also use a copper pressure flaker for convenience (the copper tool does not dull as quickly as antler).
Below is a point made from dacite, a
stone from the western US that is relatively similar to obsidian, but less
glassy in appearance and form.
A blade made from Munsungan Chert. This stone hails from northern Maine and comes in a variety of colors. It has been hafted to an eastern white pine handle using rawhide and hide glue from white-tailed deer.
Points made from flakes of Kineo Rhyolite, another local Maine stone. This stone is very hard and difficult to knap. Making thin points can be achieved by using flakes (rather than cores).
The image below is a point made from heat-treated Comanche flint (Texas).
The heat-treating was done in an electric oven, reaching 500 degrees F for 2
hours after a gradual warming over several hours (the next heat-treatment will
be hotter and longer). The original color of the flint was light
brown-gray. This spall was noticeably easier to knap than the un-heat-treated pieces. The point measures 48 mm in length (i.e., just under
2 inches). Its style is close to the Susquehanna corner-notched type
points. A few small step fractures on the left margin of the point are
the main flaws. A medium sized moose antler billet and a white-tailed deer
antler pressure flaker were the tools used to make this.
The blade below is made of mahogany obsidian from the western United States. It was knapped using white-tailed deer antler and hafted to a moose antler. The hafting, as with the knapping, was done without the aid of metal tools. The antler tine was scored with a flake of rock and broken from the antler using a hammer stone. It was then boiled to soften the interior so this could be excavated (with stone) to allow the obsidian blade to sit within the antler. The hafting material is resin collected from eastern white pine and tempered using wood ash. The effective blade length is just under 7 cm.
