Flint Blades

Neck Knives

I started making these neck knives years ago, hafting small blades into deer leg phalanges.  There are four of these bones in one deer leg, and have been used for a number of purposes - fishhooks, whistles, rattles. These have been popular at rendezvous because of their unique blend of bone and stone.

Small Jasper Dagger

A couple of small 6 1/2 inch jasper bladed knives.  It is interesting that in the past half dozen years there has been a lot of imported jasper arrowheads from India showing up at the rendezvous.  They are a little blocky in the cross section, but knapped out of some nice material.  So, I decided to rework some into blades and haft them into deer  leg bone handles.  This will look good in neck sheath.

English Flint Knife II

Recent Tomahawk

This is the latest tomahawk.  Made of knapped Texas flint, hafted into a hardwood handle.  Deer hide is sewn over the handle and blade lashings.  It is decorated with seed beads, horsehair locks, coyote fur, and feathers.  Puruse some of the older posts to see pics of prehistoric tomahawks and read some of the history and lore behind the tool.

English Flint Knife

One of my projects this past fall was playing with English flint.  My previous experience knapping this material was unimpressive.  But, this heat treated blade, percussion knapped, made a nice 6 1/2 inch blade.  I hafted this blade into a knobby elk antler and wrapped with it sinew and hide glue to make a 10 1/4 inch stone knife.  This type of flint, as the name implies, was used by the prehistoric peoples of modern day England to produce cutting and chopping tools, as well as projectile points.  A nice website to check out is www.flintknapping.co.uk.  This is the site for John and Val Lord and their prehistoric research projects.

Using Mullein Stems for Bowdrill Firemaking

I love making friction fires...rubbing two sticks together.  There is something fascinating about spinning a shaft of wood against another to give life to a glowing ember.  Some days I have to spin up a hot coal just to smell the smoldering wood...that's my aroma-therapy.

 Earlier this year I started using more mullein stalks as drills for bowdrill firemaking.  Mulleins are common in the roadsides and waste areas around eastern Nebraska.  They are easily recognized by their velvety rosette of leaves, woody stem, and flowerhead stalk. The woody stalk makes a good drill component when used with a cottonwood  fireboard.  The stem consists of a sturdy woody outer shell with a styrofoam-like inner pith.  The soft inner pith and hard outer stem can be a problem sometimes.  A couple of technics help...

One thing I found is that the drill has a tendency to bore through the fire board, thinning or shaving the outer
 stem near the business end helps.

Also, cannot sharpen the top of the drill to a point, to spin freely in  the socket, because of the soft pithy
core.  To aid this, I tied a piece of

cordage around the top of the drill so it would not easily split.  Then, sharpening a
short hard wood stem to a point, I force it into the styrofoam like pith.  Now I have a hard wooden top to my drill  that can take more abuse and be sharpened to spin more freely in the handheld socket.