Author Topic: what to knap (for archery) ?  (Read 1947 times)

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Offline ekalavya

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what to knap (for archery) ?
« on: November 11, 2015, 09:53:30 am »
Before I was into bow making , I was trying to make arrowheads from bottle glass.
I looked for sources avaiable on the net and then made a pressure flaker out of a screw
and one out of a nail , but i never got the lentile form and the sharpness to my satisfaction.

After having build a couple of bows , I ask myself what is really necessary or useful
for archery, because broadheads and foreshafts are useful for hunting not for practicing archery.

I use glass pieces from bottle necks for tillering together with sand paper. I thought of a replace
meant for the sandpaper like some paste made of lard or oil and glass dust. However i do not
pressure flake or anything with those glass piece, i just use the first break and just look if it is
sharp enough, takes enough wood and can be held handy. (if not then i just take another one)

Well, I thought of knapping an adze , but what i heard or found out is , that it seems adzes
are mostly grinded and hardly ever pressure flaked. Also i am not good in working with basalt
or flint .... i can knap them to some degree with heavy round river stone but i never managed to
work them with a pressure flaker.

Actually what else useful can i make out of bottle glass? Well once i made a wedge for splitting
handle sized branches and it worked.
Because that worked maybe a really small but useful adze for bow making would work as well.
Besides wedges and small one held adzes i really have no other idea , what else would be useful
for bow building and archery ?

A small drill ? A nocking tool for arrows ? A draw knife for removing bark ?


riverrat

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Re: what to knap (for archery) ?
« Reply #1 on: November 12, 2015, 09:14:35 am »
i knapp glass all the time. its a great resource. might as well use it. ive found that for building a bow or arrows with stone aged tools, even if they are glass rather than stone, and making points your going to need hammer stones, flakers and billets all different sizes. and sand stone different sizes and broken pieces can be a nice thing for getting into notches .thats my set up right there for knapping/flaking. for arrow shafts and fletches. youll need a shaving tool, a saw edged tool, this can be glass, stone, shell, you name it itll work.a tool to use as a knife., more sand stone, a arrow wrench, a burnishing tool , bone works so does smooth rocks, a couple Y sticks and a rock for weight to build yourself a primitive spine tester, it wont tell you the spine of all your shafts. what it will do is if you use 1 arrow shaft that shoots correctly from your bow as a guide to set it up, itll tell you if the shafts your testing are correct, to heavy,or to light so you can correct them, fletches and grease.for bow building more sand stone , some raw edged flakes, and spalls. a adze is a sweet thing, a piece of stone thats sharp and big enough to use as a draw knife is nice. lots of scrapers, that saw edged tool for notches i mentioned in the arrow shafts, a axe be it mounted on a handle or a hand axe but something to cut down a small diam. tree.wood or antler wedges, and a nice sized wood mallet. if you make a bow with stone aged tools work it green till its ruffed out. or youll spend more time making stone aged tools than makeing your bows and arrows.just my thoughts Tony

Offline Zuma

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Re: what to knap (for archery) ?
« Reply #2 on: November 12, 2015, 11:10:27 pm »
Please don't take offence.
It's just a suggestion.
It seems to me you want to do it all at once.
That's cool if you progress with out regret
and not a big expenditure of materials.
If I were you I would latch on to the easiest
or most interesting tool, implement that you
would like to produce. Stick with it until mastered.
Then take the second bite. 3,4,5 etc.
I am sure you will do well no matter what avenue you take.
Zuma
If you are a good detective the past is at your feet. The future belongs to Faith.

Offline ekalavya

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Re: what to knap (for archery) ?
« Reply #3 on: November 13, 2015, 05:52:19 am »
@river.

well, a lot of suggestion/proposals ....
i suppose the sand stone is for smoothing and sanding and a stubstitue for the sandpaper ...

the long bladed knive isn't that wanted for bow making ... it is amazing what can be done
with a cheap cutter ... so making something like a cutter from either stone or glass would be
quite revolutionary and quite useful ...
the problem is still that with knapping one gets only serated blades  ... at least with the
technique i know

@zuma
yeah, all at once is usual a bad way to start things.

riverrat

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Re: what to knap (for archery) ?
« Reply #4 on: November 13, 2015, 07:55:39 am »
if you find big flint pieces, you can strike them to remove flakes. a lot of times you end up with what i call a one hit wonder tool. basically its a large enough flake with a raw edge thats straight that you can use as a scraper and a knife, or attach to a adze handle. when i say knife, i am using a general term. it dont have to be a long bladed thing with a handle. if you use a flake of flint, glass, what ever to scrape , its a scraper. if you use it another way, its a knife. understand what im saying? Tony

Offline ekalavya

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Re: what to knap (for archery) ?
« Reply #5 on: November 13, 2015, 12:40:00 pm »
@river.

yeah , i got it .... and "one hit wonder tool" is a pretty good term for it ...

it is also what makes the so called "evolution of projectile points" a problem ...
because that could have been used or not used ... nobody knows

that could even formed without prehuman or human intervention just
by breaking or falling rocks or something alike

some people even said the biface is the waste and flakes are the products