Slow-Mo Presure Flaking!

[D. Tiller]

We'll I learned another lesson in Knapping today! If you go slower in pressing the flakes off you get them to travel further. Been doing pressure flaking for years just snapping the flakes off and last night I started doing it a bit slower. Lo and behold! The flakes when all the way across the point I was making and really looked great and took off the excess material I was aiming for. I guess its true that if you go a bit slower good things will come to pass! Well, something like that anyways!!! 

[mullet]

  Yep, that's what she said last night.

[D. Tiller]

 

[El Destructo]

                                                     Mullet......you are a Nasty Ba^&*$d!!!!!!

                                                                             

[Otoe Bow]

D:  What do you mean "go slower?"    If you mean slow down and make platforms, grind, contenplate, grind some more, then pressure flake, I'm there.  That's why it takes me a week to make one small point from a 5 pound rock.   

Mike 

[cowboy]

Mike, ya gotta go faster . I haven't tried the slow pressure flaking yet Dave, well maybe I did for awhile - can't remember . Nowadays it's pop, pop, pop starting at the highest ridges then cleanin up in between, then the other side, then the base. I got some other techniques in the back of my mind though - I'll let ya know how they go..

[D. Tiller]

Nah! Paul, push inward firmly then rotate slowly untill the flake comes sliding off the biface. And, Eddie! Get your mind out of the gutter!!!! 

[leapingbare]

Hey D, that works on obsidian and the highest grade chert's and flints, but its wont work on allot of other rocks.
 Iv been trying to do that Oblique flaking and I've sorta figured it out ya need to have a perfect cross section and no steps or hinges, but I'll be close to having a nice ripple flaked point and I'll over shoot a flack and blow edge off.

[D. Tiller]

Yeah, I'm doing the same especially at the tips and base. I also think by going oblique on the biface allows you to get rid of the imperfections and hinges especially when shooting across the opposite side.  You sure it won't work on lesser quality stone Jesse? All I tend to work is obsidian at the moment. I am setting up platforms when pressure flaking too. Especially when there is a hump in the stone I pop off a flake in the opposit direction and put the tip of the flaker against the stone where I want the edge of the biface to be and not going above that. Seems to be working well but I dont get much time to practice these days. Maybe by next year I can perfect the technique. I am finding that I dont have to be as precise with percussion as I have in the past to get our all the humps by setting up those platforms when pressure flaking. I only seth them up when  removing mass as in percussion. Have you tried this?

[leapingbare]

Sorta, my pressure flaking plate form starts when i am doin percushion , lemme just got through all the steps i use. 
1st i edge the rock, than i thin out the thick parts and once i get a consistant bi-face I'll set a platform up down one side of the bi-face so to take flacks off side 1 and i also set up a platform to remove flacks off side 2. once th plate forms are set up on both sides of the bi-face i than remove the flacks from side 1 and than side 2. and i repeat this proses until i have a thin preform and i use the same proses when pressure flaking.
  I've learned that when pattern flaking its best to have a cross section that is more convex , but not to convex.

[D. Tiller]

Yeah thats what i have found with the convexity issue. Though you guys work some prety tough stuff back east. Mine is all obsidian so I think it flakes more easily. I wonder if the slower impacts might work better for percusion with obsidian. Let the weight of the bopper do the work instead of powering through it fast?

[leapingbare]

D i give it a very light tap on obsidian, unless i have a tough platform or if i am spalling.

[mullet]

  David, that's exactly what Claude has been helping me with these last two weekends. He has been showing me how to oblique percussion flake to take off the stacks and turtle humps. Then it's the same technique, after setting up a platform to further reduce it pressure flaking. You are just pulling and rolling the flake under the thick area.

 And my wife was watching and cheering me on while I was knapping. 

[D. Tiller]

Did she bring out the Pom-poms Eddie? 

I have a bunch of guys here on the island I knapp with at times but I have to tell you its hard to get them to explain how to do some of the stuff. I end up discovering a lot of it all on my own. Slow but learning and making better blades these days. I'm actually learning some new notching techniques now also and finaly getting it so I dont blow the ears off them.

[leapingbare]

David have you tried punching your notches? I've been punching my notches laity and the flacks are deeper and longer there for i can run my notches farther into the point. ya got any questions just ask