Adventures in Flintknapping - Part 4 - Some Improvement

This is the fifth installment of my series covering my first attempts at flintknapping.  As a bit of a disclaimer I am not a professional archaeologist, paleontologist, flinknapper, historian, or geologist.  I’m just a person with an interest to both learn this difficult skill and share the learning experience with others. Hopefully this will be a help as they start their journey down this path.

In part three I was getting somewhat frustrated rather quickly.  I have to remind myself that any skill worth having is worth putting in the dirt time to acquire, and eventually master.  Even though this is a skill that 'is so easy a cave man can do it' it still takes time and patience, especially when learning without direct access to an instructor.  Time and tonnage.

For a couple of days I wasn't accomplishing much other than turning big rocks into small rocks and flying razor blades.  In times like this I like to recall the words of Thomas Edison 'I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that wont work.'  I think that knapping is a skill that requires gaining the knowledge of what doesn't work along with what does.  With all of the dynamics involved you may need to hit the rocks 10,000 times with little success, but pay attention to the bad hits as much as the good.  When the piece breaks don't be completely bummed out.  Immediately look at it and ask, what did I do that caused this to happen?  While it may be a undesired outcome this time, and may be undesired most of the time, there may come the time when it is the desired outcome.  Remembering what went wrong and why always adds to your mental toolkit for the day that it may actually be needed.

I started today by trying to pressure flake again.  My previous attempts were mostly unfruitful.  This time I was using a proper hand pad.  The results were dramatic.  I still can't push 'long flakes' but I am pushing reliably predictable flakes.  I started with one of the preforms I had at hand.

I still need some more work on slowing down and choosing my platforms better but I was feeling much more confident.  I was feeling confident enough to pick up one of the larger flakes that I was saving until I had enough skill to work with it.  I analysed the piece letting it tell me where the point was on the inside.  The flake had some problems; it had a bulb of percussion on one end, a large ridge on one side and a slight twist overall.  With my renewed confidence and a better grasp of pressure flaking I started to let the point out of the rock.

After about only an hour I had my best work yet.  Not perfect by any means but serviceable and a far shot better than anything else I've done.  

I worked this piece entirely abo, cracked the bone and  small antler while notching

Ruler for scale, I still have to work on symmetry

I just couldn't get that ridge off, without messing it up

The main lessons learned today are that proper support of the work piece means a world of difference, and to not give in to frustration.  Other lessons are that abo pressure tools grab at the small sharp edges better than copper but dull or break more quickly.  I still need to work on envisioning the whole finished point at every step.

Anyone who is reading this I thank you for your time and I hope that I've been helpful.  See you in the next installment.