You're a flintknapper too? I make arrowheads all the time. I've always wanted to make my own primitive bow and shoot it with points I made myself
Yes, I taught my self to knapp when I was 12. Made a cedar long bow, cedar arrows, pine resin glue, sinew string and feather/head raps, flint heads (pine trees with a flute) and killed a doe with it when I was 14.
Good work on the head and bow. I used to do some knapping but lost interest. I also built a lot of bows; selfbows, bamboo backed Osage, laminated recurves and longbows. Never one from PVC though, except kids bows. All the videos I see of PVC bows, guys snap shoot. Can you not hold those bows at full draw for any length of time?
Thats impressive! I taught myself how to knap a couple summers ago. I have yet to put my point collection to use though. Maybe this year I'll give it a try
Shot my 60lb pvc bow across the chrono with a 440gr Maxima Hunter 350... 161fps equating to 25ft/lbs of energy. May be chasing some squirrels, coons, or birds with it this fall!
Thanks man! They take a while to build where both limbs are equal thickness and tillered evenly, but its well worth the time! I think my next bow will be a centershot version and i will make it longer than this brown bow. 62lbs sure launches an arrow but is rough on the arms.
I once killed a whitetail doe with a 52# hickory selfbow shooting 137fps. With a sharp cut on contact 2 blade head and a heavy arrow at close range those speeds are plenty to kill deer.
I've been knapping for 27 years. I was fascinated with arrow heads, no YouTube, didn't know anyone that knapped, couldn't find any info on it, I just seat down and figured it out.
I remember I found my first point when I was 6 in a cornfield in PA. It was a susquehanna broad-point, about 4 inches long. I was hooked on prehistorical lithics from then on. I took an archaeology field study course two summers ago where we dug on the Mashentucket Pequot reservation and I was able to find my first fluted (paleo) point. I started knapping almost immediately after finding that point, with some youtube help though. Its amazing how when the practice finally clicks, you can manipulate that rock to almost anything you want
Its all about the type of tools you're using for the type of rock you're trying to knap to get those flakes to really travel the way you want them to. I use whitetail antler for obsidian/dacite, moose/elk for some of the harder cherts/flint, and I'll sometimes use copper billets on either if I feel like it. In OK you should have access to keokuk/peoria chert, which is a knapper's dream. Try using a sandstone hammer-stone if you don't have access to antler/copper billets.
That same summer I dug a large overhang out on the back side our property. Found a banner stone, 2 perfect daltons and a hand full of broken ones, a quad and around 60-70 early archaic points and a bunch of bone/antler tools.
That sounds like a dream dig right there. We have very acidic soil up here so all those bone tools that were once used have been decomposed for thousands of years
The dig was very cool. A large slab of rock had pilled off the roof and fallen in the overhang. It was about 60 feet long, 15 feet wide and ranged from 8 to14 inches thick. Any way, about 8 inches of sediment had built up over the slab and found a lot of woodland points and pottery pieces in that layer. Then I broke the rock up and used a set of come alongs to get it out. Long storie short on the bone antler, the stuff I found near the top (2-3) foot deep was very soft and brittle but the stuff I found right on the yellow clay (about 4-5 feet deep) was as hard as rock, almost like it was petrified.
