"Leaf Knives"

I was playing around the rock pile the other night and came away making a couple of "leaf knives." A good number of cultures have these simple cutting blade forms in their tool kit. They are pretty much a simple ovoid preform finished off with a cutting edge. Simple and efficient.

An event promoter contacted me and asked if I wanted to participate in an upcoming "Pirate Fest." It took a little thinking how I would fit into this kind of theme. Eventually, I came up with the idea of doing something like...Survivorman - Marooned. I'll demo/display survival skills and tools, such as firemaking with the bamboo firesaw, making discoidal and bipolar cutting blades with quarzite cobbles, the bamboo rat trap used by a contestant fromt the show "Survivor", etc. Probably, decorate the tent with some tribal masks, rubber snakes, various items 'salvaged from a ship.' All in all, it is entertainment with some educational aspects..."edutainment." Anyone have any ideas other ideas?

Grady Knife

Grady knife...why do I call it a Grady knife? Because it is for a gentleman named Grady...lol. When one of the guys from work found I did flintknapping, he had me make some stone knives using antler handles from deer he and his sons had hunted. You know, I haven't dropped and broke a stone blade, in literally years....until the last event started a spree. I was demonstrating flintknapping and had made a nice long obsidian blade. Well, I tossed my hammerstone down onto the canvas tarp directly onto the blade, snapping it in two ... AARRUUUGGHHHHH!!! Actually, I wasn't too upset, but sometimes I think this is how cussing was came about. The large knife pictured, started off with a nice large whitish blade...until I dropped it on the concrete...AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!! A new blade had to be made to fit the large antler handle (11 inches), thus the top knife you see. The smaller knife was made knapping the salvagable Novaculite stone into a smaller blade.