Knapping in Texas

[le0n]

^^ thanks, guys.

i'm going to attempt to cook a few of them in a few days.

what temp and duration do you recommend for bull gravel, Patrick?
(also, the landscaping place is on 35, just north of the outlet mall)

said rocks:


this one on the right had a long flake scar on it:


the test rock (in the background) had a geode center.
sort of wondering if i can work this spall to have the crystals on the base of the point (if i don't break it):


two halves that i found in the bin:


i like the color variation of this one:


and a re-enactment of what happened this morning while testing the soft rock. i felt it hit me and then the glove was pinned to my thumb.


there was no denying the blood flow when i removed that little talon. i decided to get ready for work after that, hah hah.
next time i'll use a thick leather pad to hold the nodule.

[JackCrafty]

For cooking temps, see the last line of my signature:  Light Colors:  200deg for 24hrs, 400deg for 4hrs, Cool for 12hrs.

That's a good rule of thumb for most stone.   If it doesn't respond, you can try higher temps if you have a kiln. (500 to 650 degrees).  If it breaks up at 400+ degrees, then back off to 300.  Less than 300 doesn't do much.

If you have dark colors (browns, greys, blacks) they tend to like lower temps in most cases: 300 to 350 degrees.  You have to experiment with the dark stuff.

[le0n]

Thanks, man 

[JackCrafty]

Let us now how it works out.  You've got some nice stone there, especially the tan stuff.  I need to take a trip out that way... 

[le0n]

here's an attempt at the raw rock. geeze, it is tough.
it takes some serious pressure to drive even the shortest of flakes.
so i now have a baseline to compare against the heat treated material.







this is the spall it came from:

(i couldn't find the tool in google+ to just draw a circle around it)

[cowboy]

That rock can be extremely tough raw. If you can make your way to just south of San antone there's corn fields full of that stuff (laCoste). They even pave the back roads with it around Lytle.

[le0n]

That rock can be extremely tough raw.

^^ true.

but i feel like it could survive a harsh impact.

i spent about an hour trying to spall some of the rock i picked up. trying to plan/predict the resulting flake before applying the hammer stone is difficult. that being said, one out of ten times the rock did what i wanted it to do.


there are twice as many spalls that aren't shown in that photo; these came from three of the original stones.

the shapes of the spalls weren't very pleasing to me, but looking back, they aren't too far away from what i usually get from 3rivers. some are better and some are worse. so i think they'll be more than ok to work with.

[le0n]

took a break from the spalling and started peeling a part of a bleach bottle bottom (previous photo) that was given to me; thanks Thunder



still attempting to send flakes across that subtle ripple inside surface:

that smooth ridge is a concave valley.

[le0n]

spent another quarter hour on this tonight. i almost have the original surface completely scarred.


 i now need to be careful not to send one over the ridge and blow out the other side.

[Majuba Tom]

You got some nice spalls up there Le0n. Keep it up you are doing good.

[le0n]

ok, guys.

i'm finally done with the 'projects' that come with moving into a new house.

the weather is a little more forgiving now too.

i got this box of heat-treated keokuk "flakes" yesterday afternoon and couldn't wait to try some of it.



i can't find my copper bopper yet (misplaced in the move) so i went at the piece with a hammer stone. it wasn't pretty but i got the big bulb down where i could start seeing a preform. i almost started a new piece because i was left with a rather thick preform without much room to thin, but i decided to see what i could make of it.

this was as thin as i could get it.






it may not look like it, but it took me over an hour to get to that, but i didn't want to give up on the first rock that came out of the box

[Chippintuff]

Leon, I can't see the photos in that last post. Try editing the post and reinserting them.

WA

[le0n]

^^ oops. i missed a step in google+

thanks, kind Sir.

[le0n]

had some free time this afternoon to work on some more flakes. my daughter was picking them out and seeing what i could do with them.


i was dealt a really wavy flake. so i attempted to make a leaf.

while thinning a ridge, i revealed this in the process:

i'll light it up and take a macro shot later on to see what the inside of that pocket looks like.

i'm really beginning to like the feel of this stuff.

[Tracker0721]

Awesome leaf! Cool idea