Sunday, January 04, 2009

New Knives

My brother and I have been getting involved with the local Trackers Northwest organization. They offer many different classes including survival, martial arts, homesteading, medicinal plants, and all kinds of other cool stuff. Today we helped teach flintknapping and animal skinning for a free event. About ten people showed up to learn what the organization offered.

I used the opportunity to finish up an obsidian spear point. I'm pretty happy with it, but I wouldn't mind if it were a bit longer.



Brian, one of the instructors, took us down to the park across the street where many trees had been cut down. There I cut a six foot limb from a downed tree to make my spear shaft. I took the bark off it tonight and have it clamped to a shelf to try to straighten a few bends as it seasons. It'll probably be awhile before I can haft in the spear point. I want to make sure the wood dries slowly so it doesn't crack.

I also finished two obsidian knives this weekend. The first is pictured below. The handle is Vine Maple stained with black walnut dye.



This little guy is a different color of obsidian with some brown color in it. The handle is an antler tine. I drilled out the inside of the tine so the haft of the knife is hidden inside. You can see a thin band of pitch between the point and the tine.

3 comments:

Bleach said...

How sharp are they compared to a regular knife?

Sassmouth said...

In theory a flake of the rock can be 100 times sharper than a regular knife. These knives are pretty sharp and I could prepare the edges to be even sharper than they currently are.

Compared to regular knives they are less effective because the blade is thicker and the edge is less durable. I would have to sharpen it more frequently than steel.

I'll find out how well these knives work when they are used to butcher a buffalo in a couple months.

fooiemcgoo said...

sweet shank dude.

that doesn't look as easy to hide from Warden in the rectum as a sharpened toothbrush.