Flint Knapping, Part Deux

Any of you guys ever been to the knapping and atlatl event in New Albany, Mississippi? It's part of "Freedom Fest" festival and is this weekend.

Flyer says knapping, atlatl demos, trad bow demos, folks making all three, etc.

Sounds interesting.

That would be cool to see.

https://flintknappers.com/fliers/NMAA_2018.pdf

One of these days I'm going to get a knapped knife. I think those are bad ass.

I know a guy that can fix ya up....

I shot a deer with one a few years back. Horrible penetration compared to my Zwickey and VPA glue on heads but, fun to make and look cool.

I've made em for 20+ years and killed a dozen hogs and deer with several kinds of stone points. My penetration on hogs with a longbow and recurve rivals anything any steel head has done...recurve or compound. I feel that a well made stone point will out penetrate most steel heads. Obsidian is not one of my favorite materials but it will kill even when I breaks on bone, the broken edge is scalple sharp. The only material I would not use on a deer/hog again is Tallahatta Quartzite because it is weak when thinned enough to make a good arrowhead and will break on contacting bone. It is a native Alabama stone material and there have been thousands of real native atlatl points made of it, but those points usuallly run larger and thicker than the size needed for an arrowhead.

I agree with you, Fred. I have buddies who hunt with them exclusively and kill plenty of deer. I still knap now and have gotten better. I should’ve mentioned, the stone point I was shooting was one of the early batches I made. I’ve come a long way since then. Still make my own arrows and self nock, just haven’t gone back and tried another stone for deer since.

I have always been amazed at the poor quality of some of the authentic heads I have found over the years. ten years ago I made a white quartz point that was ugly, fat, short, BUT sharp. I killed a pig with it, and chipped a spot off. I reflaked that edge, missed a pig and chipped it again on a rock. Fixed it and killed another pig. Only thing going for it was that it was sharp.

Y'all ever knap a piece of glass

Been knapping some obsidian lately. It's just like glass

glass and obsidian snap pretty much the same