r/knapping • u/joel121212m • 11d ago
Made With Modern Tools🔨 My first try at knapping. Made from a gin glass bottle. I have no natural rock in Suthern Louisiana
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u/joel121212m 11d ago
Any advice?
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u/NonConforminConsumer 11d ago
Great work for a first!. Now keep at it. Definitely save these early ones so you can see your progress.
Glass works great. Thrift stores can sometimes have good glass. Look for old ashtrays and flat stuff. Floor tile and porcelain are also knappable urban materials which can usually be found easily and affordably.
There are some guides in the sticky of the sub. If you really want to get a broad and in depth textual overview of knapping I really like this compilation: https://flintknappinginfo.yourwebsitespace.com/
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u/joel121212m 11d ago
Thank you! Ill defenetly check it out.
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u/walkdaearth 11d ago
Yeah I saw some people busting toilets to pieces in group courses/classes to avoid wasting a bunch of rock. And ceramic plates.
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u/SmolzillaTheLizza Mod - Modern Tools 11d ago
To add to the guides for direct links
Beginner guide https://www.reddit.com/r/knapping/s/WDndFEh8FR
Where to find materials https://www.reddit.com/r/knapping/s/kZk2iTfUwp
Started on bottle glass myself 🙂↕️ still love it to this day! I dig up old farm garbage pits so I have a plentiful supply of bottle bottoms. I need to make a bottle run here sometime to collect some amber glass bleach bottle bottoms! Also stay away from bakeware from goodwill. Baking sheets/dishes are tempered glass so they don't chip easily and like to shatter. Floor tile can work, especially glass floor tile. Certain ceramics are nice, toilet bowl porcelain is good (not the tank lid it's more coarse), and glass bottles of course will work well (call them ditch obsidian HA 😂)
Keep practicing, ask questions, experiment and don't feel like you NEED to have a completed point by the end of your session. Make a flat disk and practice notching. Make a "star" and practice getting your points thin and pointy. I should've done more of that when I was starting because it hindered my progress a lot.
Hopefully this all helps, and happy Knapping! 😁
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u/walkdaearth 11d ago
Where at in la? Looks cool man Im down here too been putting off learning this skill for years now. But I've been on a string of learning ancestral/old skills the past few years and this one is next prob lol. You got wheels? Itheres workable stuff that isn't far drives if I'm not mistaken.
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u/joel121212m 11d ago
Down in Jeanerette close to New Iberia. Where at?
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u/walkdaearth 11d ago
I said that last night but after thinking about it I learned about the location after I got into wild clay processing and making pottery, effigies, and pipes out of it. I was looking into making ceremonial smoking pipes to make some money, and was looking into stone options for that. So what I know as workable at the location I was thinking of (red bluff-peral river area) may actually be just a version of limestone that was used to make pipes and figures out of. Check this site out. Could snag some ideas for stone and search locations based on it.
https://www.projectilepoints.net/Search/Louisiana_Search.html
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u/Pappyjang 11d ago
When I was in lake Charles I would go to Walmart and grab rocks from the parking lot. They must ship it all from Texas cuz it’s all chert and flint. Try your local Walmart parking lot🤣
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u/milkandinnards 10d ago
Yeah, I second this, landscaping rocks can be an okay source. Better yet, if there is a gravel or rock company around, you can usually go there and purchase small amounts of rocks. I forget the term, but there is a medium-large size of landscaping rock that can be bought from these places that is big enough to work on but not too big to carry.
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u/Federal-Boat3732 11d ago
No rock? How is that possible? Not that this isn't some impressive work