couple more newbie knapper questions

[Bishop]

    Well, Dana got me cut!!! i said i was afraid of Obsidian and he went and called me a wuss, so today i got out a spall of Dacite, not even Obsidian, got off one good flake then i went for another one, small piece shot straight down and sliced the index finger of my right hand....thanks a lot Dana.....
    Im pretty proud of my first knapping cut but it wouldnt hurt my feelings if it never happened again.
Bishop

[DanaM]

Oh sure blame me because ya cut yerself, is the finger still attached? if so slap some duct tape on it and get back to work

[Hillbilly]

The knapping gods demand blood sacrifice. Very few times do I knap without springing at least a small leak-it's all part of it. If flint diidn't get sharp enough to cut you, it wouldn't make very good arrowheads.

[cowboy]

The scars heal up almost unoticeably - after awhile you have enough scar tissue and calusus built up that you won't cut as easy .

[Ryan_Gill_HuntPrimitive]

i am not sure how you guys cut yourselves so much   i break a decent amount of stone in a weeks time and  very rarely get anything more than 1 tiny, tiny prick on the finger once or so a week.  what do you guys do for a living, maybe i have built up skin   i build stone waterfalls for a living, so maybe handling all the stone everyday toughens my hands up more than the average guy.  obsidian doenst even get through all the way very often.   also, i dont know if you guys do or not, but i flip every flake off my pad before i make any more.  -  Ryan  aka "man hands"

[John K]

Anyone wear leather gloves when they knapp 

[Bishop]

Dana
   Couldnt find the duct tape, so i spit on it, rubbed some dirt on it and that did the trick....then told my wife it was your fault....
Bishop

[Hillbilly]

Ryan, I have hands like leather, but I'm also sometimes lazy about cleaning the flakes off my pad after every whack. Those are the ones that usually get me.

[Justin Snyder]

Once I managed to get a large flake between my work and my leg while I was trying to get some good force on it.  Since then I started putting a big leather pad on my leg too. Justin

[Otoe Bow]

I worked some obsidian for the first time this weekend, (very sweet compared to Johnstone  ).  I kept my deerskin pad on my leg even when doing my pressure work just to keep the little glass shards out of the fibers of my jeans(that's really irritating).  Call me a wuss, but I also had on some safety glasses and a mechanic's padded-palm work glove on my left holding hand.     I've never used it with stone, but when it comes to glass, I'm kind of skeerd.   

I also clean each flake off my pad, not so much to keep from cutting myself but I like to look at them to see how the turned out. 

Otoe

[cowboy]

When I'm doing percussion work I have an old pair of welding leathers folded up on my leg (thick to absorb shock) and a peice of thin leather over that. Evertime I make a hit I flip the flakes off - those flakes are guaranteed to cut ya ifn ya don't . On pressure work I cut the fingers out of any old glove to hold my rubber pad (backed with thin metal for longevity) just to insulate it from pressing into my hand and getting sore over time. I usually will work all the platforms/deltas down one side before I dump em outa my hand - those ocassionally will cause a leak ..

[carpenter374]

just last night i got a flake of glass stuck in my middle finger while percussion flaking. first deep cut ive had knappin. it didnt hardly hurt at all. had to pull the flake out with my teeth though.