everything i know about spalling flint

um, which isn't all that much. spalling is very different from percussion knapping. i go over the differences. there's this "incident" in the video where a rock makes me look like an idiot. i don't in the video end up stating exactly why that occurred. the reason it occurred is because the semi-complex shape of the rock caused me to have an optical delusion regarding the viability of what i was attempting to do, and what i was attempting to do was therefore not what i was doing. a great analogy would be to try to go visit your grandmother by tunneling through the earth's curvature to her house, assuming her house was in china, or something. and i don't mean china, texas, because that'd be way less impossible from here. sincerely, fc

[@mikelewellen4195]

The debitage of a good spaller is something to behold. Nothing but a few trimming/edge prep flakes, stuff with internal flaws and low quality sections for the most part. I've started taking "arrowhead" flakes from anything large enough cause if I don't I may end up with nothing when i could have had a few more chances at something.

[@freezecracked8382]

yeah, once you get enough experience, you just get to where you can create far more flakes than you can use, if you hit a lot. and you also can get to where you usually have certainty that you can get a decent result from the larger bifaces you create, so the smaller stuff can become a secondary issue for when you get a "round tuit".

[@scottwalker2398]

Always grateful when you take the time to show and explain. I'm just starting to give this a try and wow, there's a lot to learn. Just went through a full box of band aids doing two months of learning how to sharpen knives on Japanese water stones. I just bought another box but from the looks of your hands, I think I'm going to pick up a tourniquet also. Thank you for all the great posts.

[@charlesmckinney3560]

I shouldn't have watched this before I had to go to bed, that Pedernales aggravated me and I wasn't ever working it!

[@freezecracked8382]

what happened with that rock was very interesting to me. i only wish i'd figured out what the issue was sooner and studied the rock more while it was still whole to understand better why the path through it was confusing to the apparently blind-folded crack trying to wander through the maze.

[@briantaulbee6452]

When that platform wouldn't let go after multiple strikes, I probably would have hit it so hard with the biggest thing I could find till the whole thing shattered. Make a bunch of baby rocks out of it.

[@marycomeau9364]

I watch videos with CC on. When a bunch of small flacks drop in quick succession it shows it as music and so does abrading.

[@marycomeau9364]

Abrading is sometimes applause depending on the coarseness of the abrader

[@freezecracked8382]

i'm not surprised that a tv would find what i do to be musical, but the applause interpretation seems a bit of a stretch... thanks for watching and commenting. fc

[@Chief2Moon]

When my very best makes it to the point of your very worst, I'll consider the game won& pat myself on the back!

[@freezecracked8382]

to some extent, knapping results are dependent on how many tons of flint you've reduced, and so some folks don't even have the spare time and enough rock and tools to ever get where they want to be. but as long as your having fun with it, to me that's what it's about, and ain't nobody ever started out making nice points from hitting rocks, as far as i know. i gotta take stomach medicine before i get out my early work and look at it, which i usually have no motivation to do. thanks for watching.

[@Chief2Moon]

freeze cracked Friends who've rarely if ever seen real artifacts think mine look good, but I'm having fun & improving because of videos like this& persistence. 😄

[@blackthornknives]

I'm glad you worked obsidian. It's nice to see you do a different type of stone. Keep up the great videos!

[@seth6700]

Thank you so much for the video and sharing your wealth of knowledge. You were talking about the machine hit Georgetown and how some of it is "good" and some is all messed up. Is that mostly caused from trying to get more life out of your saw blade? I do construction, so sometimes when I'm right in the middle and I don't want to change the blade I come out with some rougher edges on the wood. I don't know why I still sometimes do it, it bugs me and I end up changing the blade and recutting the piece. Anyways thank you once again for your video, since there hasn't been any newer posts in the past month or two I've been going back into your archive. It's crazy I've watched some of your videos twice and I'm still picking up new stuff each time. EDIT: I can't say his name... J Redburn I got a nice chuckle out of that! I will be sure to look him up. 21:30 what a great flake! Throw that one in the wild damn that boy was good! 😂

[@freezecracked8382]

thanks for watching and commenting. i haven't gotten in the quarries to see first-hand how the georgetown gets damaged, but i've dealt with a lot of the material and some of it that's got at least one broken-off side has a number of fractures running perpendicular to that broken area. i prefer to select whole nodules or at least very carefully examined partial nodules. in many cases you can hold a nodule by an end and hang it downward and tap it with a bopper or something and if it's solid it will "ring", and if there's one or more cracks into it it will have a duller "thud" type sound.

[@douglasswain429]

I'll be getting myself hammers all I've used is hammer stones I've subscribed to your videos and will be watching them all I've been knapping off and on for 20 years with no teacher and am getting back into it going to the next level and beyond thanks

[@freezecracked8382]

the "tricks" for me were in doing it a whole lot and paying very close attention to what was happening and figuring out why, so i could figure out how to control it.

[@nathanbush376]

I was a MONSTER when I was younger , You are funnier than you think . You crack me up

[@chriscox52282]

Great video on spalling! That Mr R is something to behold.

[@freezecracked8382]

yes, he really is.

[@petepeterson4540]

and thank you and yes you did post it the same day

[@freezecracked8382]

thanks for watching.

[@adams13f]

Was that heat treated?

[@freezecracked8382]

no, and if you prefer heat-treated material, it's best to always spall it before heating it because larger/thicker material has a much higher chance of being ruined during heat treating. thanks for watching.

[@adams13f]

@@freezecracked8382 ok wasn't sure if you could heat treat anything that size or not thanks for the great info and time to answer my questions.

[@freezecracked8382]

@@adams13f if you're going to try heat treating, google "heat treating flint" and read as many of the hits on it as you can stand. it's easy to ruin rock.