I am always surprised to see late stage bifacing of cooked material with hammerstones and not a whitetail billet. Crushing,scooping and stepping were always a problem for me with hammerstones on thin pieces. I wouldn't dream of not using antler on something thin. It is impressive to see you and Marty have such success with stone. Maybe I will give stones another try. Good stuff!
Hammerstones are tricky. Not just any stone will suffice. You need a good quality rock but when you find one, it's a whole different ball game. There's a lot of off-camera preparation involved and it looks easy in the video. I've had to do a LOT of searching and trial-and-error in my hammerstone work. To this day, I spend about 10 minutes testing each potential hammerstone in the field, if possible.
That Texas Chert seemed very cooperative, I think you scared it, haha! Gotta love that heat treated stuff. Thinning is something I have the most problems with, so watching you thin down your spalls definitely gives me a lot of insight, thanks for sharing!
I've been at it for 6 months and can hardly even get to the point where it starts to resemble a preform. I noticed you usually use indirect percussion, but could you please make a start to finish video on just making a basic preform with percussion? Thousands of videos later and I still cannot get it.
+Rusty Shackleford yeah, i use a mix of gum base and asphaltum. asphaltum is too brittle to use by itself so i add gum base. its the stuff you make homemade chewing gum with.
I've got some Rhyolite I'll be thinning down in my next video. Hopefully I'll have something posted soon. Right now the kids are home for summer vacation so we are doing lots of summer activities.
I am always surprised to see late stage bifacing of cooked material with hammerstones and not a whitetail billet. Crushing,scooping and stepping were always a problem for me with hammerstones on thin pieces. I wouldn't dream of not using antler on something thin. It is impressive to see you and Marty have such success with stone. Maybe I will give stones another try. Good stuff!
Hammerstones are tricky. Not just any stone will suffice. You need a good quality rock but when you find one, it's a whole different ball game. There's a lot of off-camera preparation involved and it looks easy in the video. I've had to do a LOT of searching and trial-and-error in my hammerstone work. To this day, I spend about 10 minutes testing each potential hammerstone in the field, if possible.
I've got a more recent video with late stage hammerstone bifacing here: th-cam.com/video/5Z3ornM3MAs/w-d-xo.html
That Texas Chert seemed very cooperative, I think you scared it, haha! Gotta love that heat treated stuff. Thinning is something I have the most problems with, so watching you thin down your spalls definitely gives me a lot of insight, thanks for sharing!
+On the Trail with Dale the heat treated stuff is very cooperative until i hit the platform wrong... many times
I've been at it for 6 months and can hardly even get to the point where it starts to resemble a preform. I noticed you usually use indirect percussion, but could you please make a start to finish video on just making a basic preform with percussion? Thousands of videos later and I still cannot get it.
What materials are you using?
Jack, use copper again. I love to see you use it, because you are so talented.
Copper works really well. I'll go back to it after I do a series using steel tools.
would a copper bopper have been more effective and produced better results than the hammerstone ?
Probably. But a hammerstone is a heck of a lot cheaper. ;-)
that's good to be in there lives hope all goes well
how much would it cost to make a big clovis I have some Indiana hornstone with bullseye
please send me an email to jackcrafty@yahoo.com and we can discuss it. :-)
Nice work
+Tommy Vinson thanks
I missed you!
+5enecan i missed being missed. :-)
Awesome stuff! As always! Wanted to ask what you make your mastic with, and how? I believe you said some type of gum and ashpaltum? Thanks!
+Rusty Shackleford yeah, i use a mix of gum base and asphaltum. asphaltum is too brittle to use by itself so i add gum base. its the stuff you make homemade chewing gum with.
can you make a rilly bad tettil and turn it to a supper thin arrowhead out of it
Can I make a thin arrowhead out of a thick one? Maybe. It depends on the material. Some stone is very difficult to thin down.
how about something very hard to knapp doun
I've got some Rhyolite I'll be thinning down in my next video. Hopefully I'll have something posted soon. Right now the kids are home for summer vacation so we are doing lots of summer activities.