Flintknapping: Improving Your Strike Accuracy
(As featured in the September 2007 issue of Practically Seeking)
Perhaps the most common problem I see with people who are learning how to flintknap is overstrike.
Overstrike is the knapping term for when your billet hits your rock too far from the edge, and is one of the leading causes of biface failure (your piece breaking in two). This breakage often leads to tremendous frustration for knappers who don't understand why it keeps happening, or realize that there are simple exercises that can help.
The key to reducing instances of overstrike is ACCURACY.
As every skilled flintknapper will tell you, you can never get too precise in your strike. After 25 years of knapping I still practice variations on the following exercise.
Tips for a More Accurate Strike
- Whether you use a copper bopper, hammer stone or antler billet, the striking technique is always the same. However, copper tools reduce the most variables which is why I prefer to use them when teaching new knappers.
- Use your hammer stone to drive small finishing nails into a piece of 2x4 that you hold on your thigh (where you would normally hold a piece of stone that you are spalling). This will help you to develop an accurate strike with a hammer stone. Too far to one side or the other and you will bend the nail. Wear gloves and mind your findertips!
Step-by-step Instructions for Improving Your Strike Accuracy:
- Obtain several pieces of plate glass of 3/16 to ¼ inch thick. I prefer a smoked glass to clear, as it is easier to see what you are doing. If clear glass is all you can get your hands on just pick up a can of spray paint or primer and color one side of the glass yourself.
- Using a tile-cutter, (available at any hardware store or Home Depot for about $7) cut your glass into 2x3 inch rectangles.
- Using a grease pencil, china marker or other permanent marker, make a small mark precisely on one corner of your piece. This point is where you want your billet to hit the glass.
- Hold your piece by the long side and at about a 45 degree angle to your leg. Getting this angle correct is important to your success in this exercise. If your holding angle is too flat your glass will likely break, too steep and you may get a very short flake or no flake at all, or once again, your glass will break.
- Strike EXACTLY on that corner to remove the square edge. Your objective is to strike with the very tip of your billet (or hammer stone) and create as shallow an indentation as possible.
- Using your marker, mark the flake scar at its farthest edge and continue that mark straight up to the top of your glass. This is your next strike point.
- Make sure that you are still holding your piece at 45 degrees and strike precisely on that spot.
- Mark this flake scar in the same manner as you did the last to find your next strike point, and take your shot.
- Proceed completely around the piece, practicing your strike on all four sides.
Why is this such an effective exercise?!
The fragility of plate glass will not tolerate the slightest amount of excess bending stress. If you overstrike, your glass will break. And if your glass breaks, you know why!
Another side benefit or working with plate glass in this exercise is that you'll get lots of practice in removing square edges, which will help you to develop much more confidence in knowing how to "get into" a new piece of rock.
Single-Strike Arrowpoint
Accuracy is the first step to being able to predict what will happen when you take your strike.
Once you can predict what is going to happen, you will soon discover how to manipulate
what you want to have happen, as Eddie did with this Single-Strike Arrowpoint.
By carefully preparing specific platforms Eddie produced this point with a single billet strike.
A bit of notching and it was ready to haft.
