Todays knapping and a few more rocks & artifacts

I've had these little flakes of Burlington chert lying around so I did a little knapping. The one at top left is my rendition of a Cahokia shark tooth effigy point. The rest are just oddball points that came out of the rock on their own. I wasn't trying to make any certain type of points, I just let the rock decide. All of this rock is untreated except the bottom two. I did the heat treatment in a campfire when I found the chert. I buried it about 2" deep in some beach sand and built a healthy fire over top. The next morning I dug out the chert and surprisingly there was no pot lidding or cracked chert. It came out pretty nice, color and workability.

These points are all Colorado material from around Grand Junction. The toughest one to knap is the middle piece above the penny. Its untreated chalcedony. The two in the bottom row are common opal from Opal hill which is west of GJ. This stuff knaps like glass and is beautiful rock. Wish I had more. Again, I just let the rock decide what shape it would turn into.
Heres a picture of a nodule of Burlington as found on the shore of Truman Lake, Missouri. It has a thick cortex, or coating, which is kind of chalky.
Heres an end shot of the nodule showing the chert interior. This is some fine knapping material. You can plainly see the cortex in this photo.
Heres a super nice specimen of native copper crystals from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It was found at an old copper mine near Houghton. The American Indians used native copper for thousands of years to make tools. They traded a lot of it as can be seen in the contents of mounds and burials far away from the source.
Heres a group of stone tools from North Africa. I bought them at the Tucson gem and mineral show. The dealer said these were from western Algeria. The top three are uniface blades. I really like the little points, especially the one on the left. I was a bit surprised to see these listed in Oversreets Arrowhead price guide. They're in the back of the book. These are going pretty cheap right now. I paid a dollar each. After the supply starts to dwindle they'll likely go way up in price. Get em while ya can if ya make it to Tucson in February!
Thanks for looking and enjoy!

Mouse pressure flaking pad and new point

These three pictures show my pressure flaking pad. I made it from an old mouse pad. I spaced the pieces of pad so I would have different flake widths to work with. Everything is glued together with Liquid Nails. I find this glue to work best because it stays somewhat tacky and flexible. This pad has seen a lot of use and nothing has loosened up.




The following two pictures are of a point I just finished yesterday using the pad. I used copper and antler flaking tools. The point is 1 1/2" long. Its made out of "silicafied ash" from the Grand Junction, Colorado area.


Thanks for looking!
Ron

Dogbane Cordage

This first photo shows a few hanks of rendered dogbane fiber. The red is from plants harvested in late September. The white fibers are from plants harvested in mid December after the first frost. The light red colored (hanks bottom middle and bottom left) was harvested in between these months. The large hank shown represents more than 200 plants. It weighs about 1/4 pound. These were harvested in 2004 along an outlet that flows into the Colorado river in Grand Junction, Colorado. Some believe that the longer the plant is exposed to the harshness of winter, the weaker the fibers. This is true in most cases. However, the white fibers (hank at lower right), when twisted into cordage has as much strength as the red, fresher, fibers. I figure that one or two frosts won't damage the fibers that much,but they should be harvested as soon as possible to prevent further damage. I harvested some plants the following spring and the fiber was so weak that a heavy piece of cordage would break very easily. Also, the fibers didn't come off the plant in long sections like the fall harvest.



Here is a photo of some finished cordage. All of them are z twist, two ply. The top cords are around five feet long. The rolled ones at lower left are a foot or so long and I made these for Paiute figure four traps.The two at lower right are the thinest I made and I used these for strength tests, planning to make a fishing line in the future.



Heres a link to an in depth article I did on cordage for Survival Blog and Primitive Ways.

Heres the link to Primitive Ways:

www.primitiveways.com/cordage_in_North_America.html

Thanks for reading my blog and I enjoy and post all your comments. Take care....Ron