Didn't get any knapping done today, having family night, I'll post a little about cooking rocks early in the morning.
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Originally posted by White Falcon View PostWhen and y do you cook cheat or flint or do you?
I cook my cherts in a turkey roaster I bought from Wal Mart for $40. If you get one try and find one that the temperature goes to 450. Here is how I do it, spall down your material if its thicker than 2". Pour a layer of clean dry sand in the bottom and start filling the roaster with chert and fill in the air spaces with sand as you go. When its full put the lid on and turn the roaster on to no more than 200, cook at 200 for 12-24 hrs more if the Chert is/has been cold/wet. In this stage I'll sometimes keep the lid just slightly open or occasionally open it to let the moisture out. You have to get the moisture out of the chert before you ramp up the temps or it with break the chert. After its dried put the lid on good and DON"T open it until finished! Next steps are to ramp the temps up no more than 50 degrees at a time until you get to your maximum temp you need. The central Texas stuff that need cooking does well if you can get it to 400-500. I have done well staying at each temp for a minimum of 2 hrs before ramping up to the next. When you get to your max temp let it cook for a long time, I have cooked chert at max temp for up to 36 hrs. If its cold outside I'll then ramp down temps quicker than up, 100 degrees every 1 1/2-2 hrs.; hot summertime I'll just turn of the roaster and let it sit. DO NOT OPEN for at least 24 hrs or more! Let it cool off slowly.
All this needs to be done outside, rocks put of fumes/gasses some of them smell bad and some could be harmful. Also the roaster puts off lots of heat. I even wrap mine in non backed fiberglass insulation to try and make it a little more efficient.
Experiment with your materials to find what works best for them. Write down your "recipes" and mark the chert so you know how it was cooked and can replicate it next time.
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Material that is "grainy" or really hard can benefit from heat treating. This piece really improved with heat. It didn't get "glassy" but the knappability really improved.
This material doesn't need heat treating, its already really "glassy" and works well.
Rough grainy...doesn't usually knapp well. Looks and feels like glass....usually good stuff! Both of these rock were picked up in Texas. I have a spot that with in a 1 mile area I can find five or six different qualities of chert. Some next to impossible to work and some really nice glassy stuff.
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I worked down a palm-sized spall of Keokuk today on my lunch break. While I had no catastrophic failures, I struggled with getting thick enough thinning flakes, if that makes sense. By the time I ran out of width to work with, I was still too thick. I did end up with 7 or 8 good flakes that will make good bird points, however.
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Two things I always consider when working different materials!
1. Make sure you have a good platform to work from!
2. If one kind of tool is not working, try and go to a different kind of tool!
For example: go from a antler billet to a hammer stone!
3. Changing the angle of the blow sometimes helps, or the side(mass) of the tool!
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I broke up my good smaller hammer stone, need to find another. This was all antler billet today. I have noticed that my antler has changed shape a bit with some use. I've now got a wider flat side, and a narrower side. I did notice a change in the flakes by hitting it with the narrower vs. the flatter side.
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Looks like Jason has been busy working, and I have been away at my Junction deer lease. I managed to do a little knapping while down there. I'm lucky that it has some really good quality material but unfortunately most of it has freeze cracks in it making a lot of it unusable or at the least brakes into small pieces. Well, my wife picked up this piece and I decided to try it.
Here is the thickest it was.
This material was really sweet and Knapped very nicely! I picked up a feed sac full of it! This is a rough preform I ended with before I headed back out to the stand to hunt.
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