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heart surgeons IIRC, the edge of an obsidian blade can be exactly one SiO2 molecule thick.....cant sharpen steel that fine.......but it does loose its edge much faster than steel.....

Thanks....comferms I may not be loosing my mind..yet.


And quite cool, eh??

Some Ophthalmologists used to use obsidian for cataract surgery back in the 70's. Sharper than steel of the day.

I'd like to see your handywork....

OK. Sorry this is not the best of images, but I just did it with ambient indoor light. I would have rather waited for a cloudy out door situation with less glare, but said I'd put this up this evening.

The coin is a quarter for scale, and the longest lance shaped point (center second from bottom) is 7 inches. The wife and I used to do a bit of looking, and with frustrations over finding mostly broken or poor quality implements, I picked up some rock and gave it a try. The first effort took about 4 hrs and looked like it was done by a blind, spastic, 5-year old. Didn't seem to bad at the time though for a blind spastic 50-yr old.

A month of so later I found an excellent instructional manual on flint knapping written by a gentleman named Waldorf. After reading his book and breaking a few rocks, the techniques suddenly came through.

Since then, I've actually done demonstrations on reservations and at local promotion events. Again, I have never marketed any, but I have done donations for charity auctions.

As one can see, we have a variety of colors of obsidian around here. Black, red, green, a sort of battleship gray, and some that are multicolored and striated. I would need to backlight those for the effect to come through.

It's a wonderful and inexpensive hobby that takes absolute concentration. All that troubles one will leave the mind as soon as he/she starts working the angles on their material. Very little strength is required after one masters the techniques. Tools include river cobble, both the blunt and pointed ends of deer antler, and a larger sliver of uncooked turkey leg bone for much of the final small scale chipping.

As to sharpness.. The sharpest edges actually need to be dulled a bit to avoid chipping. One can actually flake edges that do end at the molecular level. Even small cuts from those edges will bleed for half an hour, because the slice is so smooth that clotting blood can not adhere. Essentially only single cells are severed rather than the ragged chain saw like damage typical of most steels. The upside is that even a severe cut can heal in about 36 hrs, because little in the way of new tissue growth is needed.

Have a good one...

Our farm in SE Iowa had a large area that was a campsite and an area that was an obvious burial grounds. In the fall when plowing it was not uncommon to bring up remains. My Grandfather that owned the farm who was a half breed that left the western reservation that his family was sent to in 1910 as a young man, would walk the plowed grounds and gather the bones and other relics and rebury them along the creek that ran thru the farm. He was always afraid that if the area that he owned was identified as a burial grouds he would lose the farm. The farm was in the family until 1967 and I have a few items found there Russ

I never get tired of looking at this stuff!

That red obsidian is crazy.

You've developed a real knappknack..grin


beautiful stuff, thanks for letting us see it. Don

thats just to cool.....ive got a fist sized chunk of snowflake obsidian somewhere, if you knap me a point out of it yah can have the rest.......

1minute has some talent...beautiful pieces.

I have a question - if this modern knapped stuff shows up in a museum, how do you tell the difference from the real McCoy?

Thanks for the comments. It's just a hobby though, and I've no wish to be beholding to anyone. Catch me if you're passing through here, and I might just give up a sample.

I do need to get back at it though, as I noticed one of my cookie tins is about empty. Anyone from Oregon that's going to our statewide Hunter Ed conference in about a month can try to pick up some framed samples in our benefit auction. I'm putting about a 4 inch Christmas tree shaped point and a willow leaf type blank in a shadow box. Sometimes I buy them back myself though if the offers aren't enough to cover the framing.

Edited for Roundoak:
Discerning modern and antique pieces??? There are some scientific methods that can difinitively seperate artifacts and recent reproductions. Newly exposed surfaces of obsidan or about any stone begin to absorb small amounts of water at near geologic rates. Samples from the surface of a piece can be viewed under a microscope, and one will see sort of a moisture front in some distance from the surface. With knowledge of how quickly that front migrates into the stone and some detailed measurements (probably at near micron levels), one can determine how long ago the surface was initially exposed to the air.

Pieces out and about in nature often have a dull and a bright surface. The patinaed dull side has been exposed to the sun and picked up minerals etc that are deposited by evaporating rain water. The side sitting in the soil surface may be bright and shiny. I have some rejected shards that I've dropped out back though, and they can take on those characteristics in just 2 or 3 years.

Many modern knappers also saw out their blanks and use copper tools for flaking the surfaces. If one does not completely knap off all the sawed surfaces, that is an obvious give away. Copper was present and used by some of the early civilizatons, but an obvious copper streak or tiny flake on a knapped edge may also be a hint of modern work. Using rock saws to rough shape points helps one generate some beautiful works of art and some truly giant pieces. I know a couple folks in the region that work commercially. On their work, every flake goes to the midpoint of the piece, and flakes are perfectly aligned and spaced like herring bones.

Sawing also lets one get a lot of large pieces from a single rock. When I start hammering on a softball sized cobble and am striving for a large piece, about 80% of the stone will end up as waste. I may finish with maybe two points in hand. With sawed slabs, one might generate about 8 or 9 pieces of various sizes and finish with about 20% in the waste pile.

If one is truly interested in giving it a try, surf up some of the Waldorf instructional books. Living near obsidian sources is also a blessing, as its the easiest of stones to work. One needs strong fingers to process the more granular stones like flint, chert, or wood. When knapping, the greatest frustrations come early as one reduces good rock to nothing but waste. As the skills improve, the frustrations show up later. That's when the piece is 95% done and one breaks it when trying to chip in the final notches. Then you just rework it to a shorter piece.

Interestingly, the most difficult of points to fabricate are the oldest of those found in north America. They are the Folsom and Clovis points, and modern man has still not definitively determined how they were hammered out. Some suggested methods demand 3 or 4 hands to accomplish. Here's a link to some examples of those: Folsom Link

I've made a few efforts at those, and running that final flute the length of ones near finished work leaves me with more pieces than I want.

can appreciate that.....consider it an open ended offer if you ever do become interested......

My father was skilled at making similar native american artifacts for a historical museum in Saginaw, Michigan. He became interested in hunting for artifacts when a huge burial ground was found on his parent's land. We had several suitcases full of artifacts in our basement, and I used to go through them every once in a while as a child. Some of them were so perfect, and lots of them were just peices. I really like the pottery and what was called a "bird stone." It was a cerimonial peice worn by a influencial shaman in the tribe. Five river come together in Michigan at Saginaw. The indians used the rivers like highways and traded heavily in the Saginaw region. We live less than a mile from where all the rivers came together. We walked the farm fields in the spring and could find plenty of arrowheads and chips on the surface. When we turned the soil in our garden in the spring, we always found a point or two.

My father's collection was finally donated to the University of Michigan. He got it back years later, and after my father's death, it was given to the Saginaw Historical Society. One of the dig sites we used to go to was named after my father. I very proud of dad's volunteering his time and collection to the Historical Society. I loved helping him dig with the Historical Society. He spent many hours logging in various artifacts and helped in setting up there displays at the museum. He taught a lot of folks about the history around our home town, but more, he taught me and my brothers how volunteering brings a community together. He was a great man.

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Lots of interest in this discussion. One of the nicest threads i've read.

Thanx for starting it.

Great stuff and one heck of a talent you have 1Minute. Thanks for sharing.

Interesting thread. It reminded me knapped piece I saw in an indian artifact exhibit in a museum near Copper Harbor, Michigan.

It was a piece of glossy, blood red stone about the size of a dime that had been knapped into a *very* symmetric maltese cross.

The person who did it was obviously very skilled and proud of his abilities.

Had a good hunt today. Took a couple of the young guys doing construction, up on the bluff. I believe they're hooked now.....

Don,
Good hunt for sure. I'll try and find photos of the stuff my dad collected over the years. I really like hunting for them,iIt's a nice way to spend the day -- especially when you have a day like the one you show above!

Let me know if I can join you to go hunting. I have done a bit in Florida and New Mexico. Have not found anything in Colorado yet. I am near Golden.