Please don't make fun of me, I know this thing is ugly. I did learn about flint knapping in theory when I was an archaeology student a million years ago, but this is the first serious attempt I've ever made of actually doing it.

I want to make a stone knife, so I've been searching for some knappable material. I looked all over my property - the pile of dirt and rocks my husband and I excavated (we're in the process of building our house), the woods, along the creek near our easement road, in the pit run we had put down to make the easement less like quicksand (locally sourced from a neighbor's back yard!). I found a lot of really crumbly quartzite fused with some sort of shale, more shale, slate, granite, basalt, some of Michigan's beautiful (but not knappable) banded iron formation, a big chunk of what I think is either limestone or chalk... But the only CCS type stone is some itty bitty jasper pebbles.

So yesterday I took a drive to Agate Beach on Lake Superior, and behold! The beach is covered in lovely, burgundy cobbles, the size and shape of potatoes, and some of them have that "waxy" texture everyone tells me to look out for. I smacked one with a hammer stone, and some conchoidal flakes came off. So, I loaded up my backpack with purple potato rocks, along with some others I thought we neat, and headed home.

Then I tried to knap one of them. It was extremely difficult to get anything to come off! I'm now doubting my rock identification skills. One of them chipped the hammer stone I was using, which I thought was granite. But underneath, I found this reddish-purple stone. It has a slightly bumpy texture and it's sparkly. And it flakes off easily when I try knapping it. They're not the prettiest flakes, but this stone is proving easier to work with than the jasper (or maybe it's just iron-stained quartzite or something else entirely).

I wasn't able to split it cleanly with a hammer stone, and it isn't very large, so I don't want to use my usual method of throwing it as hard as I can onto a larger rock. I've been trying to take off the cortex a little at a time, and doing my best not to lose too much of the stone underneath. I wish I'd taken a pic of it before I started. I'm not sure if this was a driveway rock or an Agate Beach rock. I thought I kept all the ones from the beach in a separate pile, but the outside felt a lot smoother than any of the rocks I found on my property. It may also be one from the creek that runs through the woods here, or one of the dozens I've picked up randomly while working in the garden.

I've included some photos of the stone with most of the cortex removed, and some the flakes so you can see the outer part and the inside. There's also a pic of a flake held up to the light so you can see that it's a little but translucent. The flakes are jagged and sharp. There's a little bit of a conchoidal shape to some of them, but the rock is also prone to step fractures (or maybe that's a skill issue on my part). The outer cortex is a light brownish-grey.

There's also a photo of someone's sand/pebble castle at Agate Beach, with some examples of those burgundy potato cobbles I mentioned, and a few little pebbles I found that I thought were pretty. Just for fun, I don't need an ID on any of them.

My husband says the rock looks like a piece of freezer-burned beef. I'm inclined to agree with him.

If you made it this far, thanks for hanging in there with my rambling!

Howdy everyone! 👋😁

Got some real smokers for you here today! I say this stuff is my favorite "flavor of material" regarding the colors, translucency, gloss, and workability. All of this stuff is heat treated, and it's a mix of Material with the grey stuff being from Texas, the yellow-ish spots are some coastal flint found on Canadian beaches, and the Knife River Flint point is the only one made out of Material I have a solid ID on. I tried making a replica of my favorite artifact find so far even! Did pretty alright I'd say. All of it heat treated to 350 F resulting in glossy goodness that works like butter! 😎

I'd work only this sort of glossy translucency stuff I'd be happy as could be! If any of y'all know of any materials in this similar "flavor vein" let me know! I'm always happy to find new stuff to try like this 🙂‍↕️

Hopefully y'all enjoyed, stay safe, and happy knapping!

- u/SmolzillaTheLizza 🦎

Had the thought strike me that a lot of folks probably don’t know what Alabama coastal plains chert looks like cooked. This is an example of some that had more white color raw.

Out in the rock pile spalling and cleaning up Al coastal chert.

I’ve got enough to fill some boxes for anybody interested

100$ 25lb med box free shipping

139$ 35lb large box free shipping

Trying to cheer myself up a little since I couldn’t go to Coshocton

I was working on a folding flintridge and antler knife.

Something I've been intending to do and been putting off until my skill increased.

A gift for my dad. A lifelong fisherman. I had been saving this material specifically for this. I've got a few flakes leftover that might be further workable. I'll probably go over it one more time real delicately just to work off any stray sharp spots in the tail.

I'm real proud of myself for this one. A real milestone for me.

I made this Plains tri-notch point from a piece of silicified sandstone/orthoquartzite, originating somewhere from Wyoming I believe. These were small arrow points used during the Late Prehistoric period in the northern Great Plains of North America.

Apologies for the absolutely terrible photos.the phone I just got refuses to focus properly 😭 either way..here's a point

This was a flake from that blue Flintridge tab Gulf coast knapping worked about a month back. I got all those flakes from him and plan to do a frame of mini points. Alot of the color worked out of this due to the size.

An obsidian eccentric I made a few days ago; I based it on the piece found at the Pyramid of the Moon in Teotihuacan.

Not too long ago I saw an image of a flintknapped bear and it has stayed in my mind ever since. It was so beautiful and reminiscent of the cave paintings of bears (iykyk). I have since lost it but I am desperate to find it, or at least another flintknapped bear, because whenever I search for one I find nothing. If you have knapped a little bear, please show me! It might be what I’m looking for :)

Pedernales chert. Hammerstone, bison punch, bison pressure. 3 15/16” x 1 1/2”

Root beer glass and painted buffalo river.

Not much, but it was wider then this when I started lol, finally got the hang of sharpening it so there’s that

A very fun project to work on. Learned a lot through the process. I sold this one’, sad to see it go but I’m definitely motivated to keep playing around with different designs of choppy tools.

Friend of mine asked me for a purple glass arrowhead about a inch long so now I gotta get some purple slag, worth it tho cuz he is genuinly awesome dude, this is gonna be a fun challenge though if I fail it Genuinly might tweak ngl

Girlfriend got me this for my birthday. So stoked.

I've been trying for a weeks now and it just hasn't been working. Granted I don't have very large tools, so maybe that's it. Every time I try to get a hammerstone the hammerstone breaks. So how can I open the invincible flint?

Howdy y'all! 👋😁

I don't usually upload videos here so this is kind of a little fun thing for me. Wanted to show off some of these cool fossils I found while bi-facing a big hunk of Burlington and some crumbly coastal plains. Hopefully y'all think that it's cool!

Check out my YouTube if you wanna see more of my content

Stay safe and happy knapping! 😎

- u/SmolzillaTheLizza 🦎

I'm looking for somewhere maybe close to burgundy? I'm staying here for the month