I'm new to all this, and my main interest right now is in making an axe or celt for cutting a sapling for making a bow. I just want to follow that whole process through. Arrow heads maybe some day down the road, but not right now. I live in southern Vermont where chert is rare or nonexistent, and stone walls and streams filled with smoothed glacial rock abound.
But I've looked at various axe making videos on Youtube and they are most entirely unhelpful. One showed a guy using power tools to grind an axe head out of stone in a vise. Another showed a person chipping and grinding a rock that looked like it was made out of chalk. This magically turned into a steel axehead while he was grinding it. Others had how-to make a stone axe videos that showed only making the haft, not the actual stone head.
I guess I do understand that the main processes are fairly simple.... pecking, and grinding, and I know the general form of a celt and axehead, but if there's any further advice, like what kind of stone found in this area would be preferable for the head itself, or other tips that would be great, rather than just starting out cold. In my area, quartz, quartzite cobbles, shale and slate outcrops, granite and sandstone are common.
I guess I'll also have to make some tools to haft the head, and for planing the bow sapling once cut. And again, I hope that can be done with what I have locally. That's a big part of the appeal for me.
Thanks for any suggestions.
