I can reduce finally so thank you all!

[iowabow]

I read two pdf that made a world of difference to me. One was on platform preparations and the other was on slab reduction. I combinded the two ideas  in my technique finally last night and was very happy with the results. My biggest problem as a beginner is thinning the biface. Another words what do i do next when the rock has become something close to a biface. In the past (two days ago) I continued to step the biface with almost every strike and kinda relied on luck to get a nice point. I read these two articles like 3 mons ago but it did not sink in until I read them again after smashing piles of rock and gaining experience for it to make sense. The biggest thing was preparing the platform before I make the strong striking blow. There are a set of drawings in this pdf that looked like Chinese to me when I started. After having worked the stone enough I could recognize the illustrations as something I had seen before and the knowledge then plugged in place. As a beginner it is hard to hear the old knappers say "just hit rock" but they are right the info did not sink in until I made a nice large flint gravel pile. It is like you cant read until you master word recognition. Anyway I thinned a biface real nice last night and broke the point just as I was making the final blow to reduce the center but I am ok with that because I learned so much. I hope it is ok to provide these two links and a drawing of what I did last night. The drawing only shows striking patterns not what I did to prepare the platfrom and I cant explain it because it is so circumstantial. I am just jumpping up and down because I was able to do this once so I am no expert. I just wanted to share this break through with all of you! This is explained in the pdf on platfrom reduction.
www.customimprintsbyleeparker.com/images/bifacetutorial.pdf

http://www.customimprintsbyleeparker.com/images/jimwinntutorial2.PDF

[jamie]

yup 

[sailordad]

by jove i think hes got it 

[beetlebailey1977]

I still have to get it....LOL but I need to put in some more time for myself.

[iowabow]

here are a couple of picture of a point I am working. I wanted to show some of the thinning flakes I am driving off

[iowabow]

I Spent about three hours making bi faces and collecting flake to make points. I stopped on the biface above because I did not want to break the best biface I have made yet. I smashed up rock all afternoon and started getting better at not stepping the stone. It looks like a lot of problems can be solved early on by not hitting unless you know that the flake is not going to step on you. I was wondering if non-heat treated stone will tend to be less thin or be more difficult to reduce? Or is it my skill that is not allowing real thin work. It is hard for me to make thinning flakes travel to the center of the poiint with pressure flaking but if I strik it with a bopper it normally will. The problem is that the platform starts getting really small and harder to hit. It is also difficult to judge what the correct amount of force is at that scale (125grain size points). I think I have about 30 bifaces from the days work so I am going to make points today. I will post picturs of question later today.  One more question is setting up a platform for a flake to removed with the pressure flaker that same  as with the bopper but just on a smaller scale?

[cowboy]

Looks like your getting it down. Generally speaking - treated rock is going to be easier to get thin. Some rocks don't need heat and some folks can just thin em no matter what . Your correct on the platforms, smaller for pressure. Keep doing what your doing and you'll figure it out as you go. they like to call it tonnage, just another word for experience . When I get down close to a finished point I like to abraid all the edges to create a continuous platform and also shape up the point. Keep it up..

[jamie]

looking great.

[iowabow]

I hit stone all day yesterday and  made one point that fit my standard for thinning stone. The end or point of the first picture was very thick and thinned to make this point 120 grains. The thing that I was trying to do yesterday was learn to make the long thinning flake that I see all of you doing with the pressure flaking tool. If you look at the edge of the first picture you can see that the pressure flakes do not travel far they stop after a short distance. They have the same similar pattern as the bopper patterns but have a shorter ratio of distance to Length. So I was very discouraged by not being able to master this after 8 hours. I got up this morning wondering if the heat treated stuff in my trash pile would flake  if the same technique was applied to it. So the second picture is of heat treated flint (burlington) and I think I got it. Would you all look at the pictures and tell me if I am right. I still have to figure out the angle thing because it is different with the heat treated stuff. I also noticed that if I sharpened the end it grabs better. So now I think I need to ask two questions, 1 how do I think about what sharping does and does the angle remain the same as in striking the stone with the bopper?

[iowabow]

I looked at this piture again and noticed that it really is not good so I will post another one.

[iowabow]

i had a chance to work on this a little more I think this might be better for the question above. I started thinning again from the top to the center

[iowabow]

OK, I finished this point this morning. It is the finished product of the flake from above. I could not remove the step on the other side seen in the photo above. Any thoughts or advices at this point. I really appreciate the the help all of you have given me in the past two months.

[iowabow]

I wanted to share these three points made over the last three weeks. It feels like I have made a lot of changes in the past three weeks. My phone camera seems to shorten images a little.

[jamie]

the tougher stone will definetly stack easier. looking good. looks like your platforms are too high so you are getting those short flakes when pressure flaking. make sure you are using the previous flake ridge so the flake travels further and try isolating the platform a little more. im sure i already told you but check out paleoman jims video on youtube of platform isolation. you are doing great and little bits will start sinking in and you'll get those "holy s***" moments when you realise you figured stuff out. keep on chipping. you are doing great

[iowabow]

Thanks Jamie I will watch that tomorrow morning. Also thanks for the input..I am going to master this if it is the only thing I get done this year! This morning I just practiced only making thinning flakes and had a little more luck. Is this kinda on the right track? I experimented with different angles on the platform and pressure and direction of pressure. All of these resulted in different flakes but not sure I could know when it was best to do "what and when" yet. I think I am going to just practice thinning flakes on scrape till I understand a little better.