where should i look for flint??? in Dallas

[Shooter_G22]

hello to everybody,

  i'm new to this board and new to primitive archery.. well i cant say New,new...  i have always constructed Bows since i was a kid but it usely consited of a branch that i found or choped and strung it up with some kind of nylon string mostly mason line since i'm now a third generation brick block and stone mason. the nylon was always around... but i have never constructed anything well enough to hunt with...   i have a bear magnum 48" 55# recurve that i hunt with... have used that for bout 5-6 yrs now...  but just recently i have been trying to construct some self bows.. with no luck cant keep them from snaping on me...  i think its cuase im trying to keep them short around 54" and keep them up in weight to hunt... 

anyway... i have started to construct some primitive arrows out of some sort of long thin brush bush dont know what it is but it is fairly straight and i will try and post pictures of them soon... but i have been looking to find some flint or some sort of stone around my area in the Dallas/ oak cliff area...  i have a mountin creek lake close by and some forest area's that i have been searching with no luck... if anybody familair with the area i'm in oak cliff... witch is exactly what that is..  plenty of oak trees and up in a cliff type area...  but all the rock from the cliff is a chalky limestone stone type and have come accross alot of granite type stone that breaks open to crystals on the inside but nothing that flacks into a flint or anything that is sharp and hard or sturdy enough to work into an arrow point... 

i have located one stone yard that has some sort of flint that they could sell me at about .65 cents a pound but they say there 2 ton pile is mixed with some type of flint and petrofied wood and the peices are about as big as an orange to grapefruit size???


will this work to start learning how to knap??? 

i have never done any type of knappig and have only looked at a few short videos on youtube...)

but here is my question???

wouldnt it be better to find the flint that i'm supposed to knap into points than to buy it??? isnt it about making do with natural resources???   and where is it that im suppossed to find this stuff???

i am always around job sites and i think i'm going yo start looking for some of this stuff but everything i have been working on soo far here lately has been in the city and parking lots and foundations have been all around..and laying nothing but brick.. with  no natural rock to be had...


but i'm in the woods sometimes after work and on weekends with my boys and i'm trying to teach them some woodsmanship and were still working on just getting some bows togather that will not snap on us..lol... but anyhelp and or advice would greatly be appreciated...
thanks in advance...

[cowboy]

Shooter: I found some obsidian in a rock yard "SW" side of Ft.Worth but they dont' carry it anymore. Your best bet to start learning quick would be bottle bottoms or any kind of glass you can lay hands on. I gather most of mine around San Antone in the creeks, hillsides, and farm pastures. If ya want to take the boys on a little day trip - go to the Brazos river below Possum Kingdom dam, you'll find some chert in there. Good luck and post pic's.

[ricochet]

HOWDY SHOOTER, I HAVE FOUND SOME LIKLY SPEIMENS OF SOME KIND STONE I GOT FROM MY DAD,HE CALLED RIVER ROCK,IT WAS USED AS A FILTER FOR HIS LEECH LINES ON HIS SEPTIC SYSTEM WHEN WE REPLACED THEM. I HAVE'NT TRIED KNAPP ANY YET BUT IT HAS THE SAME FEEL AND TEXTURE OF FLINT SOME ARE ACTUALLY VERY SHARP. HOPE THAT HELPS. BY THE I AM DOWN HERE NEAR HOUSTON SO THERE IS NOT ANY GOOD STONE HERE EITHER,JUST SAND AND CLAY. GOOD LUCK YOU MIGHT TRY SOME OF TRADITIONAL/PRIMITVE SUPPLY PLACES.

[xin]

I find very high quality chert from the Edwards plateau in the rock gardens of Texas Land and Cattle Co and Macroni's and several other chain type eating places.  It'll get you through til you can make some legitimate purchases.  Take your kids and head toward Junction and you'll find all the chert you'll ever need.

[cowboy]

That's funny xin. I just came back from Del Rio that way on 377 - hit a creek around Junction and loaded up about two wheelbarra's full . Looks to be pretty descent stuff.

[mullet]

 Shooter, when you are ready to cross over from the dark side and get rid of that old nasty 48"Magnum, just PM me.

[xin]

Cowboy, Highway 377 is one of my favorite motorcycle routes.  Main problem  is you can't pack much chert on a bike. 

[cowboy]

 .

[xin]

There are many varieties of chert  that yieild a higher percentage of aesthetically  pleasing examples  than Edwards Plateau, but for knappability, ruggedness, and holding an edge Edwards is hard to beat.

[Shooter_G22]

i found some stone that might work...

   i was over in west dallas in a tuff nieberhood called ledbatter... and ther is a park and JC center with a walking trial....   my uncles grew up there in that neibhorhood and they told me that there was a bunch of horse apple trees in that area n they used to use them as greenades when they were kids and played wars....    soo  here i go to the old neighborhood... and driving around looking for horse apple trees to maybe see if i could find one with some limbs to be had for future bows....   no luck in finding the trees maybe they are all cut down by now since the area has been developed since my unles weere kids...  but i went to the park and low and behold there in the ally next to the parking lot was a curb that had a gutter with a run off into the parks lawn and there was stones... the stones were put there to i guess for some reason maybe for water run purpose or something but there wasnt a lot but there wa some and whil i was looking for bodark tree's the stone caught my eyse and i walked over to it and pick two up and clashed them togather and it flaked...   i was like WOW  i found something i could use!!   soooo i picked as much as i could carry and walked over to my truck and threw them in and high tailed it out of there...lol...

i figured id give it a go and if they worked out i would go back and get some more... its not like there is a bunch there maybe a couple of wheel barrles at most...

but i'll try and post up pics... later...  i tried to knap as soon as i got home but its alot harder than it looks on the videos on youtube...

and i dont have the proper tools and i dont know what im doing either...
might just make a big mess..

[cowboy]

Shooter, you probably found some pederanales. They use that stuff a lot in landscape projects and for drainage areas. If that's what it is - it will knap with some practice but is best if it's heat treated.

[Shooter_G22]

yea cowboy,

    i think your right...  dont know anything about it but i been reading this and that hear and there and i read something about heat treating or somebody was asking aif they heat treated the rock someone made a point out of on a thread on here i think...  i didnt play close attn. to that thread cause i didnt have stone or knew what they were talking about but when i was trying to make a point out of one of the flakes i chiped of the stone it was really hard to get it to do what they do on the videos on youtube...  so i was thinking or the thought came back to me about the comment i read about heat treating...   when i was thinking "what am i doing wronge here"  it came to me and i was like OH maybe that heat treating is what it needs to be able to do that...

i dont know maybe its jsut harder than it looks.. but i cant get it to shape like the guy on the video or like yo guys on this board...

  how do i heat treat stone?


and i went to the lowes and got about a 1 1/2' of the thickest coper wire they had there and i cut a peice off a little over an inch and hammered down one side flate and put it in a handle for an exacto knife and tight it down to try and use it as a pressure flaker... but it didnt work all that great...
i need to really buy a video or dvd with all the tecniques of how to do this...
but i will learn soon enough i'm sure...

[cowboy]

Shooter: buy the art of flintknapping by DC Waldorf. A very informative book that explains where to find flint, how to heat treat, and will get you started knapping. Think it's about fifteen bucks.