How to Flintknapp

Flitknapping is one of mankind's oldest technologies. A flintknapper shapes a stone by hammering it with another stone, wood, bone or antler, thereby reducing its size and redefining its shape. A flintknapped stone can be used in flintlocks, for scraping hides or as building material. Knapping was once an essential survival skill, but now flintknapping is highly specialized and rare.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Core Stones
• Antler
• Bone
• Hide or leather for lap
• Goggles
• Gloves
• Water
• Shaping stones

1. Prepare to knapp. A lap covering, such as hide or leather is important, as are goggles. These precautions should always be taken, as many of the flakes have razor sharp edges and split from the stone with quite a bit of force. Many flintknappers also wear gloves.

2. Select the stone to be knapped. This stone is called the core stone. The core stone is often a hard stone such as quartzite.

3. Chose the tool for shaping the stone. Hard palm sized stones work very well for general roughing in the shape, and bone, antler and wood can be used to shape the stone with direct pressure. This method of knapping is known as "pressure flaking."

4. Split the stone in half if it is a large stone. This gives the stone a large flat area to shape. This is especially important when used as a building material. Stonemasons have to be experts at knapping and some prefer to use the ancient methods as opposed to steel hammer and chisels.

5. Hammer the stone with rhythmic strikes if the flakes themselves are going to be used as crude tools, such as scrapers. Percussive hammering techniques will be most useful. Soft hammering gives the flintknapper more control and creates a wider variety of finished products, such as projectiles, knives and flints for flintlocks.

6. Finish knapping the stone with soft strikes around the edges to increase the sharpness or to further refine the shape of the stone. Properly knapped stone tools are as sharp as the finest metal blades. If the stones are to be used as projectiles, knapp them until each is approximately the same size.

Tips & Warnings

• Exercise caution when flintknapping as the fragments are extremely sharp and inexperienced flintknappers can spray shards in all directions.
• Flintknapping should be done outside, preferably near a readily available source of stones.

Who Can Help:

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Resources

• International Atlatl Society
• Flintknapping tools
• The Knapper's Corner

[vulgarvic]

on 6/24/2009 where in the world did the video go? you used to have a video with a guy who could peel a 4 or 5 inch flake from a piece of obsidian. I got this much information from a boy scouts handbook. This piece of crap doesn't show the angles to take a flake nor does it show the difference between a flint knife and a flint spearhead.