using billets

[mitchman]

when using a billet at what angle should you strike the edge. oh and what exactly does abrading do and where do you place the abrasions on top , where your billet will hit, or right on the edge. or am i  just wrong all together

[deerstand]

abraiding removes week stone or glass that would crush instead of transfering the blow, you abraid the ridge base you want to remove. i would suggest a video or even youtube. there are some pretty instructive videos on there under flintknapping

[mitchman]

iv downloaded and watched like 20 videos on youtube. they are pretty good

thanks


mitch

[Hillbilly]

If you watch most of the ones on youtube by Flintknappingtips (Marty Rueter, one of the best knappers alive), you will see him doing a lot of platform preparation and abrading. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a video is worth a hundred thousand.

[D. Tiller]

You got theat right! I watched all of his videos but still dont know the difference between thinning flakes and blending flakes. Anyone know what they are?

David T

[Hillbilly]

Thinning flakes are the major ones taken to thin the piece and remove lumps, bumps, and humps.  Blending flakes are shorter smoothing flakes to remove minor stuff, deltas from earlier series of flakes, or to build convexity/set up platforms.

[D. Tiller]

Got it! Marty seems like a nice guy too. Just wrote him and hes sending me on a bunch of his flint flakes so I can make them into arrowheads.

Now that I know about the different flakes I hope to be making really thin blades soon.

David T

[mitchman]

oh your getting free flakes and im not.

[M-P]

Hi,  I just got started with knapping and would feel bad about missing out on the free flakes, but a local knapper gave me some to get me jump started too.    Ron