George, you need to do some knapping and post pics so I can live vicariously through you I am in Louisiana which is awesome but no time for knapping. Hope I don't forget what little I had learned by the time I get back in a couple of weeks
OK Leslie, I tried 2 spalls tonight. (These are the first pictures with my new Pentax 18mp digital camera. I'm still figuring it out so bear with me.) The first spall was some really nice heat treated flint from Patrick. It had a big hump in it that I was sure would give me trouble.
But, I knocked the whole hump off on the first whack, I was soooo excited.
Then I snapped it in 2 a few hits later.
Tried to make a point out of the larger side, but there was a flaw in the base that kept messing up the flakes and ultimately it broke there. Too bad (sorry about the bad picture). Maybe if I'd been a little gentler I could have saved it?
Next, I took a nice keokuck spall:
and tried for a big point. It was really thin on one side and I blew out that side pushing to get longer flakes. Got it into a little bit of a clovis shape, but I could not get flutes to run very far. Ended up putting some shallow notches in it so I could haft it up.
Best I could do. Have a nice time in Louisiana.
George