Flint Knapping question

[RU shooter]

I've never done any but always wanted to at least give it a try . I was looking at a few sites that sell flint/chert and saw some listed as Heat treated , what I was look to get a few small spals and some flake pieces . My plan for these was to see if I can make a few gunflints mainly . Would I want or need the rock that has been Heat treated or in the raw ?

Tim

[lightman]

I'm not a knapper but I am an avid artifact hunter and my oldest son has taken up knapping. The heat treated material will be easier to work. I don't know about gun flints. I do have a customer that has an old railroad bed running through his farm that used a type of flint and I could send you some to play with. I also save the bigger pieces that I find while hunting and could send you some of those. If this interest you, send me a PM.

[waksupi]

Don't heat treat for gun flints.

Check around your own local area. You should be able to find some flint and chert in Pennsylvania. Glacial moraines are a good honey hole to find it, also in chalky deposits. It's scattered around anywhere the ice age covered.

[Spruce]

Good info. I saw large flint piles outwest, but never any here in the east. I assume the southern indians traded for it?

[Spoonerism]

I have some experience with finger knapping. You can find useable Flint almost anywhere and for a gun Flint you don't need to do much work, just knock it in to a shape that is flatish and fits in the vice.

[RU shooter]

Don't heat treat for gun flints.

Check around your own local area. You should be able to find some flint and chert in Pennsylvania. Glacial moraines are a good honey hole to find it, also in chalky deposits. It's scattered around anywhere the ice age covered.

we are very chert poor in pa there's some jasper and chalky type of chert in very limited quantities in the Eastern side of the state , lots of quartzite laying around though sparks great but crumbles and breaks way to easy . I emailed a local limestone quarry last night asking if they ever ran across any , waiting to hear back .

[JMtoolman]

If you can find agate in your area, it is more durable than chert, and will spark better than other flint!

[GhostHawk]

http://www.neolithics.com/good-bad-ugly-2/

Dacite, also they are a fair place to buy your first tools. Pressure flaker, copper bopper. After you have been flaking for a while you will play around and find what suits you.

Dacite is very easy, for forgiving, it is like a low grade obsidian with more grain, not quite so deadly sharp.

Flint/agate better for flints. But for learning to knap rock hard to beat Dacite IMO.

[Col4570]

Been making my own Gunflints recently,They are not so pretty as the professional ones and there is a lot of wastage.I have been using Black Flint from Suffolk and they spark good.Use the Flint Raw as opposed to Heated or it will shatter as it hits the Steel.

[Sasquatch-1]

From what I have read, if you ever in an area where colonial trade was done, the English ships use to use flint as ballast on their trips from England and dump it around the ports. I would think if you ever get to the Baltimore or the bay area you might find one of these sites. The WV Eastern pan handle is suppose to have a fair amount of chert although I wouldn't know what it looked like if it fell on my head.

Also, I have viewed some good videos on how to knap flints on YouTube.

I thought about trying, but 12 flints for $20.00 + shipping from TOW, I'll buy them.

[RU shooter]

http://www.neolithics.com/good-bad-ugly-2/

Dacite, also they are a fair place to buy your first tools. Pressure flaker, copper bopper. After you have been flaking for a while you will play around and find what suits you.

Dacite is very easy, for forgiving, it is like a low grade obsidian with more grain, not quite so deadly sharp.

Flint/agate better for flints. But for learning to knap rock hard to beat Dacite IMO.

Yeah that's the place I was looking at also Kentucky flintworks , I'm not real hung up on the type of chert or flints I use in my gun they all seem to spark and last about the same the best ones I've used I got a few yrs ago from MBS they were Tex/ark chert some were a grey and some were a whitish tan Every bit as good in my lock as the English black that everyone raves about .

Thanks all for the help and insight , Tim

[Clovis]

Traditional gun flints come from England and France. The French and English material is a true flint which is slightly different than the flints found here, which are actually chert. You can make gun flints from American cherts but they are not as high quality as the European flints. Heat treated chert is easier to knapp than untreated material. Chert generally occurs in limestone formations or in glacial drift.

[quilbilly]

If you are knapping your own, agate usually has to be heat treated in your oven (400 degrees for a couple hours comes to mind). If your chert/flint knaps anything like obsidian, the flake comes off at 23 degrees from the pressure direction. Common opal also knaps like obsidian in a concoidal flake but that stone may be too soft even though it was used thousands of years ago in "mammoth clovis points" (I actually found half of a clovis point made of common opal and eventually located the source of that opal). I once tried obsidian in my flintlock and found it to be much too brittle but makes one heck of a spark for that one use.

[Col4570]

Some of my own made gunflints alongside my Priming Flask.Not very pretty but highly functional and make a good Spark.

[RU shooter]

Some of my own made gunflints alongside my Priming Flask.Not very pretty but highly functional and make a good Spark.

Thanks for showing your work it gives me some encouragement that I can actually do this . My grandpap always told me if one man can do it so can you if you learn the skills and have the ambition . And I'll take function over pretty any day !

Thanks , Tim