Wilderness Survival Skills Pt 2/4: Flint Knapping & Atlatl

Heath:” Hi, my name is Heath and today I am going to be giving a short demonstration on flint knapping. Basically taking hammer stone and striking them against some obsidian, or some other type of crypto crystal and quartz like jasper. Hopefully making a blade of some sort. A tool that we can use to make some other piece of equipment we might use in the field.”

“People have been flint knapping ever since there were people. Just about everything that our natives used to survive with had to do with sharp rocks needed to make for hunting food, make tools for farming, for skinning animals, to processing meat, to making cordage, to making fire sets, to making back packs to making t-pees. Everything they did had to do with how much of this sharp rock was in their area.”

“Flint knapping was something that man has done for a long, long time. Basically you take a round stone that fits in your hand really well. You strike it against a bigger piece of obsidian like this here. Trying to knock of edges, flakes to shape into simple tools like a knife or arrow head.”

“They also use animal hides as safety equipment. I wouldn’t want to just put this thing on my leg and start banging on it because it could cut me and could still cut me. This stuff is really, really sharp. It is just like glass. It basically is natural glass.”

“So what I am looking for is a platform. A platform is two faces of the rock that make less than 90 degrees. So either 90 degrees of less. So I see an angle that is less than 90 degrees and there is a flat top on the rock I call that a platform.”

“So what we’re doing is not just banging on the rock. There is actually a lot going on here. A lot of hand eye coordination is involved, the speed of the hit, how far back you hit, how hard you hit. One thing I like to show people that are learning is to try on your hand first. Just getting the feel where my arm is in relation to where my hand is and the rock in my hand. I am just hitting the edge of my hand. I’m trying to keep my upper arm in the same spot and using my lower arm like a pendulum. Letting the rock fall, letting gravity do most of the work. But this is just letting my hand guide that rock into the right spot. This is the big challenge for me and any flint knapper is making those really, really nice flakes. Which comes from really, really nice swing consistent swings, hitting the spot you want to hit and getting the result that you want to get.”

“Shattered it. Would have been a pretty good one but it broke into a bunch of little bitty pieces. That’s breaking rock. It doesn’t always go as planned but the key is to get at least something out of the chunk of rock.”

“Alright, just a while ago I had it down to a flake about this big around and sort of an oblong round shape. I just sort of started shaping it with pressure flaking which is basically just putting the projectile point on top of your hand with a leather pad. Finding the little high points and just lightly, with not very much force at all, taking off little bitty flakes to fine tune this edge.”

“There are a couple of thick spots earlier on that had to remove, that I actually had to go back to some percussion stuff. Back and forth and I was knocking off larger flakes like this size right here. The shape I want is basically sort of a tear drop or sort of a triangular shape. Very thin at the bottom on the corners and what that allows you to do is put notches in there for hatching on an arrow shaft. Just have to cut more of a grind in the arrow shaft. Extend that further up and just latch it down with some sinew. Then you will have fletching made for turkey feathers. This is just to give you an idea of what an arrow head is used for. “

Kirsten: “We’re gonna look at some Atlatls and some darts. The Atlatl so far as Ive been able to tell is the oldest hunting tool used on all continents and pre dates the bow and arroe. Basically what it is is a leverage device where a spur fits into the knock of my 6ish ft dart. As it leaves it adds extra power and force so I have some blanks for us, I have some turkey feathers and we’re gonna go harvest a quicky atlatl and make this using the awesome bark river go locks knife. In general the atlatl in length should be about from your arm pit to a little past your wrist. The biggest deal is also that you want the bottom of it to end where it is comfortable in your palm. If it gets to low it gets caught on my wrist.”

“So we’re gonna go grab some willow by the creek but instead we came across this beautiful service berry tree. A great wood to make arrows and darts out of when you can find straight limbs but we found something that will work well for a quickie atlatl. I am gonna go ahead and harvest it.”

“The field expedient version this can be done in a matter of minutes. All I went ahead and did is billowed it out at a 45 degree angle and cut about a third of a way into the wood. Then very carefully without wrecking this sharp tip right here, the knock and the spur fit together that way so you don’t want to wreck that tip.”

“One difference you’ll note between these two is this one actually has a bit of a dip where as this one is flat. It is a faster load of my dart to have that extra bit taken out. This one I have to fidget around a bit to actually get it to lock in. So it is mostly a timing thing.”

“Other things to note are sometimes you’ll see bone or different type of stone attachment for your spurs and they can come out at different angles.”

“Alright, atlatl is done.”

Tyler: “Now I just need a rabbit.”

Kirsten: “Let’s make a dart.”

“So Tyler is gonna go ahead and make a 2 feather fletch on the top of his dart. One thing to know when making an atlatl dart is actually the fat end is the point that is going into the animal you’re hunting whereas the skinny end is where we are gonna put the atlatl attachment.”

“The first thing we are gonna do is find 2 feathers that are of the same wing. In other words they both have their mass and curve in one direction.”

“First thing to do is shave off the back of it. So the next thing we need to do is remove some of the feather from the top of this so we have the spine to actually bind around.”

“Alright. Before we actually go ahead and fletch what I’d like you to do is use your knife to carve out the tip of this so that your atlatl has a place to rest into. Not a lot. A little hole.”

“Take some of our fake sinew. This piece of cord. What I want you to do is make a loop. You’re going to want to go all the way to the feather.”

“For the tips, you actually have a lot of options. What I’ve done on the end of this one is actually add a piece of bamboo that is just a tad wider in diameter. A little bit bigger than the actually dart itself, bound it a few times. It is hollow on the inside. Then I have the opportunity to switch tips. I have something like this I can throw into hay bales for practice. I can make a proper sharp point to go hunting with. Or I can shove a bunch of sticks in side and have a fishing prong style tip.”