Jefferson County Missouri Chert

[Ahnlaashock]

Beginner question! 
Everywhere you look here where I live, there is another broken fragment of chert.  It is mostly weathered to where it is full of cracks.  I decided to see if I could find anything solid enough to get a usable spall off of, to experiment with. 
I found a surface piece about 150 pounds or so, and I quickly knocked off the cracked weathered areas, until I got a nice clean gray face to work.  Using a 1 inch soft brass drift, hitting with the end like a ram, I was able to drive blades off the core stone, 4 to five inches in length, 1.5 maximum in width, and curved badly towards the end.   I gathered a handful of blades off that face, and brought them home to play with. 
If you wanted usable hunting tips, no problem at all.  Snap the curved stem, straighten as you work, shorten the thin side back towards the stem, and you have the shape and function of the stemmed type points, but there is little actual knapping artistry involved. 
You can work the blades to round the flat face just fine, but when you try to go the other way on the thick side, it drives out short hinges.  If you shorten the thin side back, you wind up with a bevel on each edge, or an off center spine, on both sides.  The flakes will not run, so you wind up with a diamond shape, with two long sides and two short sides.  I was able to strike the end of the stem, and change the triangular shape on that end, but no flakes would travel very far at all. 
It ate my wide tipped antler tine when I tried to use it as an indirect punch.  I got a piece of main beam, and cut a slot in the end of it.  Using it, and a hammer stone, you can drive flakes off, but they don't travel far in one direction, and they hinge out after a short distance going the other way. 
If this stone is usable, what tools did you use?  I ended up using a soft brass billet and a hammer stone, over a wood surface with a slot cut in it, to remove flakes at all.   Even little flakes using pressure are tough to get.   
Like I said.  Survival points could be made from such blades pretty easily if you accept the triangular shape with a flat side and a ridge on the other, but I would like to actually knap the entire surface of such a point, if that is possible. 
Would heating a container of blades maybe change it enough to change the way the material works, or is the material simply too tough for that purpose? 
Thanks in advance!   

[caveman2533]

yes most likely heat treating would be good for it. I would start around 550 if you can.

[Ahnlaashock]

I will attempt to knock off a coffee can of blades, and I will see what happens when they are heated for a couple of days, and then cooled real slow. 
I was hoping it would make large usable spalls, but a grapefruit sized hammer stone of black jade won't do it.  The only real luck I had with it was in driving blades off the obvious platforms on the core. 
I am going to stop by my favorite metals recycling service today, and see if I can't get a round copper billet of about ten pounds.  That might make the blade making process a lot easier. 

[JackCrafty]

It usually takes about 3 years of knapping to be able to send a flake where you want it and make it as long as you want it, regardless of material.  Some guys have been knapping 10+ years and still haven't reached that point.  If you just started knapping, your results sound pretty good so far.   

[Mike_H]

Here's a question for you.  Where in JeffCo are ya?  I'm just outside of Festus.

Marty Rueter, of www.flintknappingtips.com (he also goes by that on youtube) lives just over in Arnold.  He knows the stone in the area well and can tell you if it will be worth heat treating.  But if it is the same stuff that I have in this video of mine, then you need a kiln to get to the temps needed to heat treat.  A turkey friar or crockpot will not get hot enough.

[Ahnlaashock]

I am 7 miles south of Arnold, about even with Kimmswick, only I am all the way near the head of the valley, over on 21.  I live in the ridges at the head of Mastodon/Seckman Valley. 
The chert, once you get into it, is gray, and once you reach good clean solid material, good luck getting anything to spall or make a blade!  Forget antler tools all together, but I have not tried wood yet.   I tried indirect antler.  Took the tip off my tine completely.  I am using a stick with a piece of brass pin stock in it, and it is taking heavy wear. 
It will work, and work well, but it takes a lot of force.  The holding the stick behind the knee and striking it to remove a flake, is about the only thing that works very well with it.  I cut a piece of 1/2 inch wood board to protect my hand, and I have already gone through it in several places, because of the force involved with even simple little flakes. To get good working material, I would almost have to saw it, I think.  It breaks very sharp, and if you ever got tools made of it, they should work very well. 
If you can get perfect platforms, where you can drive away from the core, you can knock blades off with a heavy strike pointed away from the core.  It has breaks in the weathered material that appear to make right angles or close at times.  Once you knock all of that more brittle material off, even a jade hammer stone the size of a grape fruit isn't enough a lot of the time.   I knocked the blades off using a 1 inch brass drift about 14 inches long, and swinging it like a ram. end on. 
As far as doing pretty good, well, Thank You, but knapping a stemmed point out of blades or big flakes is not all that hard, but it has made me appreciate why some of the points were made as they were.  I am going to have to try wood to knock spalls off, because the heavy bulb the way I have been doing it, is really hard to deal with so far for me.   The weathered brittle material is much easier to work, but it is hard to find a solid piece.  The weathered material is white with lots of reddish rust colored patina found in the cracks. 

[Mike_H]

Sounds a lot like some of the keokuk I got up in High Ridge.  I did manage to make one usable point out of the stuff.

Maybe when the weather warms up, we can knap together.

[caveman2533]

If you are that close to Arnold and Marty R. you should contact him. He is one of the best abo knappers there is and you might be surprised what can be done with flint that you think is to tough to knap. Raw Burlington some real tough material and it is amazing what Marty can do with it.

[Mike_H]

If you are that close to Arnold and Marty R. you should contact him. He is one of the best abo knappers there is and you might be surprised what can be done with flint that you think is to tough to knap. Raw Burlington some real tough material and it is amazing what Marty can do with it.

Agreed.

Marty's youtube channel is http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFX0-ypHcQuMxnO51UZUCiw.  I highly recommend you watch his videos and get on contact his.

Also, the point I made was with abo tools.

[Ahnlaashock]

I just almost finished a little point using his rolling the antler tine method, out of a little round flake.  So far, the only way I have found to produce anything other than edge flakes, is to use hard strikes.  The shaft behind your knee, where you can strike as hard as needed, looked interesting when I tried it, but I would need to modify tools to give it a real try.  The rocking motion, using the outside curve of the antler tine, allows you to form it and do a little bit of thinning.  Even then, I am talking about working on a flake.   Survival type tips, I could do, and I could go as far as to produce them with a spike for mounting on pith centered wood shafts or bamboo, if needed.   Getting a flake to run across the piece hasn't happened yet, even by accident! 
I would welcome meeting some of you and learning from someone other than big rocks made into small rocks! 
I have some very hard Red Oak lumber, and I am going to make a wooden bopper tomorrow, just to see if it will work with this material at all.   

[Mike_H]

I just almost finished a little point using his rolling the antler tine method, out of a little round flake.  So far, the only way I have found to produce anything other than edge flakes, is to use hard strikes.  The shaft behind your knee, where you can strike as hard as needed, looked interesting when I tried it, but I would need to modify tools to give it a real try.  The rocking motion, using the outside curve of the antler tine, allows you to form it and do a little bit of thinning.  Even then, I am talking about working on a flake.   Survival type tips, I could do, and I could go as far as to produce them with a spike for mounting on pith centered wood shafts or bamboo, if needed.   Getting a flake to run across the piece hasn't happened yet, even by accident! 
I would welcome meeting some of you and learning from someone other than big rocks made into small rocks! 
I have some very hard Red Oak lumber, and I am going to make a wooden bopper tomorrow, just to see if it will work with this material at all.

marty would be the one to learn from.  I regret not getting together with him this year.  Me, I'm not that great.  My skill has dwindled over the past eight months.  But yeah, getting together to knap would be cool.  maybe we can start an impromptu knap-in.

[Ahnlaashock]

Well, the material is workable, but leave namby and pamby at home.  You won't need them
You have to hit this stuff like you are mad at it, and pressure flaking is good for edge work only.  It seems to respond to different angles, but you can not tip it towards you, even clobbering it with a hammerstone.  If you do, it will hinge or dive.  On some of it, when trimming or turning an edge, even 90 degrees will produce a hinge near the edge if you don't smack the heck out of it.  I don't yet have the skills to hit it that hard under control, but I am getting better.  Pressure flaking even the edges is tough, and it will stall out in a heartbeat, even on thin material. 
As this stuff ages, it turns white, and that material is great, if you can find a piece that isn't badly fractured.   The grey stone from the center of a piece, is just flat tough. 
The other issue is trying to break up large pieces to get to better material is CHALLENGING.  I took a steel sledge down and tried it on the round boulder I had been taking pieces off of.  Looked like a big golf ball, bouncing away from even really hard strikes with the hammer.   Nothing useful was accomplished.  I have not tried a hammer that has been annealed yet, but I found about a five hundred pound solid core the other day, and I am going to see if an annealed sledge will be able to drive pieces off it.  . 
Billet/punch indirect or direct percussion seems to be what will have to be used with this stuff, and I have not yet build the tools I need for indirect.  Antler is not the right choice for a punch either.  This material will take the end off an antler quick if it is used as a punch. 
I have an inch and a half piece about 6 mm thick. I have been working, and I am going to have to go back to hammerstone to finish just the edges, since it stalled in both directions before I even got the margins down, the edge centered, or close to finished. 
I can now drive thinning flakes, and understand the angles it requires, but you have to hit it like you are mad at it.  When I get good enough to hit small platforms swinging hard and all the way through the platforms, I will be able to form just about anything with this material, I think.   I keep hitting a little too high, and snapping the pieces as I am reducing them.  Luckily, practice material is plentiful! 
I am enjoying the learning curve so far. 

[Japbow]

      Interesting topic. I imagine that primitive man would've
      experienced the same challenges coming to grips with
      a new material. Also, the posts are well- written which
      ALMOST creates a clear image in my head...

      (Maybe you can see where I'm going with this...)

      Anyway, if you have a camera, why not snap off a few
      frames and let us see this stubborn, mystery stone
      for ourselves? 

      Japbow.

[Ahnlaashock]

Will do.  Will have to wait until I am home in the daylight, and I will get pictures of a few different pieces, since it can vary a lot.   I can take a picture of some pieces I have been practicing trying to learn on. 

This picture shows the color change in between two pieces with the gray color it is when you get into fresh material, and the white of the more weathered material on the edge in between.   Sorry about the picture quality.


This side shows the iron type stains it often is associated with on the outside, and in some of the fracture lines.


This one is the other side.


This one shows the almost grainy nature of the fresh material sometimes.  Notice the white areas are noticably smoother textured when a flake is driven off. 


I am sure Jack could work it using his indirect methods, but otherwise, get a generous supply of hammerstones before you start! 

[koan]

Looks just like the stuff i found here on my place in Boone Co.....if its the same you got to hit it like your mad at it... Brian