Recently, I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos on survivalism, bushcraft, backyard knifemaking, and the like. This is not because I’m some sort of doomsday prepper or endtimes weirdo. I just find the ingenuity and resourcefulness in many of these videos to be inspiring. And highly entertaining. And, I figure, it can’t hurt to […]
Start talking about flintknapping, and most people probably think of arrowheads or other projectile points. Though made using essentially the same fundamental techniques, a “prismatic blade” is a very different animal. In the archaeological record, prismatic blades appear as long, thin flakes of stone, usually having two parallel cutting edges and a trapezoidal or triangular cross-section. A few modern flintknappers make prismatic blades, but the leading light (online, at least) is probably Californian Jim Winn, aka paleomanjim.
This two-part series from Eddie Starnater of Practical Primitive shows you how to extract the clay from raw soil and process it into a material that can be used for pottery. In the first part, Eddie teaches a simple water extraction process that uses a series of mixing and decanting steps to remove sand and silt, followed by pouch filtration to remove excess water. In part two…
The flint knapping community is as generous with its time and expertise as any enthusiast group I know. Case in point, this fantastic resource from knapper Mike Lynn, who has compiled more than 340 pages…
My buddy Mike Cook of Portland, Michican, has been knapping for 30 years. It shows. And while I’d probably never dare to use such a knife for fear of damaging it, I’m still amazed at how inexpensive fine hand-knapped points and blades are compared to handmade steel knives. A traditional custom knifemaker with Mike’s experience would charge several times as much for his skill. I first ran across Mike’s work on FlintKnappers.com, which is a great all-around resource for those interested in the hobby.
OK, so it’s not actually a tutorial–it’s a chapter from Oakland martial arts instructor Sid Campbell’s 2006 Warrior Arts and Weapons of Ancient Hawaii that’s freely available in its entirety on Google Books. I found Campbell’s book after seeing one of these lei o mano, as I think they are called, in a Discovery channel program. Before hiking to the library to check it out I thought, what the heck, I’ll see how much is available on gBooks, and was surprised to find that the chapter on shark-tooth weapons, which goes into great detail about the various traditional methods of preparing the teeth and attaching them to the handle, is all there. Thanks to Mr. Campbell and his publisher. If you’re into it, please consider buying the book.
Interesting Instructable from member Tool Using Animal (best ID ever) about how to buy red oak from the big orange store and turn it into a decent bow. He reports a 55-lb draw. [Thanks, Tim!]
