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Mike's Flintknapping, Blacksmithing, & Primitive Crafts

Blade-meister

Blade-meister

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Most of you know me by now due to my mammoth painting skills in the wet shaving world. Many of you may not know that I'm also a flintknapper with 17 years experience. Flintknapping in a nutshell is creating knife blades, arrow & dart tips, and spear tips using flints and cherts just like our ancient relatives used to do. I find flintknapping is the great equalizer in society because no matter who you are or where you came from or what you believe, your relatives survived using flint tools at some point in the past. I've done a fair amount of work for museums and private collectors, but I also attend several shows each year where I sell my creations to sustain the hobby.

In 2016 I also started my venture into blacksmithing. It's been quite a journey starting with a little 70 lb poor quality anvil I borrowed from my dad to where I am today having my 179 lb German Trenton anvil dating from the 1890's and my other 160 lb Fisher anvil dating 1906. I've been working steadily at building a wide variety of blacksmithing skills doing hooks, hinges, and all manner of useful hardware. 2018 saw me making my first knife blade and it is my intention to become a well rounded blacksmith able to do just about anything with a hot piece of metal. 2019 I officially named my forge "Yorkshire Forge" and had stamps made so that I can mark my metal work with my forge name. The village I live in used to be called Yorkshire in the 1700's and 1800's which makes me just the 4th blacksmith to have a smithy in this area since it got settled. I've set up a nice little smithy and look forward to what the future holds.

In addition to the flintknapping and blacksmithing I also do a wide variety of other historical crafts. Powder horns, pottery, arrows, sculptures, pipe tomahawks, tomahawks, fire striker sets, and even pen & ink drawings. The great thing about my hobbies is that they provide me a way to sustain them by releasing things out to better homes than mine. I'll be sharing the various things I'm working on and if anything interests you please feel free to post about it and send me a personal message for anything that would constitute a business transaction or special order.
 
One of my favorite points to knap is the Susquehanna Point. It's a NY Woodland point dating to 3,700 - 2,700 BP. I'm known in the Flintknapping community as "Mr. Susquehanna" as being sort of an informal expert on how to make this type of point. Here are a few pictures of the Susquehanna Point:

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From left to right: Onondaga Chert, Esopus Chert, Pennsylvania Jasper, Esopus Chert

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This is one of my favorite Susquehanna Points made of Onondaga Chert. Sadly, it was a for a museum order and now belongs to the Canegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
 
I have always wanted a knife out of obsidian.
 
This is great! I've seen you post some of your finished work in other places. This would be a good place for any of those photos so folks know what they can ask for.
 
Blade-meister said:
One of my favorite points to knap is the Susquehanna Point. It's a NY Woodland point dating to 3,700 - 2,700 BP. I'm known in the Flintknapping community as "Mr. Susquehanna" as being sort of an informal expert on how to make this type of point. Here are a few pictures of the Susquehanna Point:

View attachment 10141
From left to right: Onondaga Chert, Esopus Chert, Pennsylvania Jasper, Esopus Chert

View attachment 10142

This is one of my favorite Susquehanna Points made of Onondaga Chert. Sadly, it was a for a museum order and now belongs to the Canegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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This is a very cool skill! You sir are awesome.
 
NurseDave said:
This is great! I've seen you post some of your finished work in other places. This would be a good place for any of those photos so folks know what they can ask for.
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I agree wholeheartedly! I have more pictures planned, but I have to take some time and get them together. I'll be posting new pictures every day so keep it interesting. I also plan on posting pictures of my blacksmithing forge and flintknapping shop.

One question I get asked a lot at my shows is: "How did you get interested in flintknapping?" That's a great question and I'm sure it will be asked at some point so why not put it out there before it's asked? My father and grandfather did a fair amount of duck hunting which took them along the rivers. They eventually started finding arrowhead and other artifacts in certain farmer's fields so they'd make a point to look as they hunted. Continuing the family tradition my Dad took me out looking for arrowheads for the first time when I was in 1st grade. Not 30 minutes into the hunt I bent down and picked up a large point and asked "Dad, is this what we are looking for?" From that early age I always wondered how they were made as I collected artifacts into adulthood. I finally found a guy about 40 minutes away who was actually hunting with his flint tipped points so I bugged him and he finally sat down with me to show me how it was done. From there I watched videos and got connected with the local flintknapping community which had me traveling 2 1/2 hours away for little gatherings with the top knappers in the northeast. It took me about 3 years before I was making really decent things, but I was making points that could have taken down game in my first year of knapping. Pretty and deadly are two different things in flintknapping.

Here's a picture of the first two points I found that first hunt with my Dad when I was in 1st grade

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I make a fair amount of knives each year. Here is one of my favorite knives to make hafted into a deer leg bone with sinew or intestine wrapped around it / my homemade pine pitch glue.

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The scrimshaw on the bone handle replicates Inuit Indian scrimshaw found on artifacts from their culture. In this case there are atlatl hunters shooting at caribou. The "long" looking multi-headed beast is actually how they depicted multiple caribou running in a herd. I thought that this depiction was quite intelligent in it's simplicity and the action it depicts. I also make this type of knife without the scrimshaw. The flint point is actually Burlington Chert from Missouri flaked in a Hardin style point.
 
Blade-meister said:
I make a fair amount of knives each year. Here is one of my favorite knives to make hafted into a deer leg bone with sinew or intestine wrapped around it / my homemade pine pitch glue.

View attachment 10158

The scrimshaw on the bone handle replicates Inuit Indian scrimshaw found on artifacts from their culture. In this case there are atlatl hunters shooting at caribou. The "long" looking multi-headed beast is actually how they depicted multiple caribou running in a herd. I thought that this depiction was quite intelligent in it's simplicity and the action it depicts. I also make this type of knife without the scrimshaw. The flint point is actually Burlington Chert from Missouri flaked in a Hardin style point.
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Nice PIF...I'm in! :D
 
Many of you have seen this knife that I made just recently, but it deserves a spot of it's own on my hobbyist thread. It's American Flag glass mounted into an oak handle with brass pins and a hand forged guard. This one was hard to let go because I really loved the look of this knife and it blends both of my hobbies together perfectly. I thought the buffalo head nickel was the perfect way to add some flare to the handle. I did borrow the technique of wrapping gut at the base of the guard from master knife maker Daniel Winkler. A fine bowie style knife and I'm not sure I've ever seen one like this in all my travels.

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The more I see what the hobbyists at TSC can do the more in awe I am at their skills and depressed at my lack of skills 😉😂
 
Blade-meister said:
I make a fair amount of knives each year. Here is one of my favorite knives to make hafted into a deer leg bone with sinew or intestine wrapped around it / my homemade pine pitch glue.

View attachment 10158

The scrimshaw on the bone handle replicates Inuit Indian scrimshaw found on artifacts from their culture. In this case there are atlatl hunters shooting at caribou. The "long" looking multi-headed beast is actually how they depicted multiple caribou running in a herd. I thought that this depiction was quite intelligent in it's simplicity and the action it depicts. I also make this type of knife without the scrimshaw. The flint point is actually Burlington Chert from Missouri flaked in a Hardin style point.
Click to expand...
I have tried doing some scrimshaw once and it didn't go well, but i did learn a little. I need to try it again i think. you're also making me want to try knapping again....
 
Yup I will be ordering a knife here too! Two TSC knives eventually.
 
Pretty cool stuff. I imagine it takes quite a lot of precision and patience to accomplish something like that. It’s cool that you’ve done replica work for the museum, that’s a real honor.
 
uacowboy said:
I have tried doing some scrimshaw once and it didn't go well, but i did learn a little. I need to try it again i think. you're also making me want to try knapping again....
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Traditional scrimshaw is quite the art. There are guys out there doing just super great scrimshaw work in the knife making industry. I like to stick with the style of the old artifact scrimshaw art because it has a simple look to it. All I can say is keep trying.

CBLindsay said:
It’s cool that you’ve done replica work for the museum, that’s a real honor.
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One of the coolest museum projects was to make a replica Clovis spear for the San Diego Zoo's tar pit exhibit. This was a full sized 6 foot spear tipped with a Flint clovis point. Apparently the museum staff bring it out for show so kids and adults can touch it. They broke all of the original points I knapped for them so I suggested they have me haft plastic casts and so far they have held up well. Shipping a spear from NY to California is always interesting but I've got a tried and true method to ship them. It's pretty interesting to stand holding a spear like the ones they hunted mammoths with.
 
Another area of replica work I'm noted for is the shell effigy art. Original artifacts made from shell only survive buried in the soil under special conditions so authentic artifacts made of shell are rare and VERY expensive to collect. The originals are made from Lightening Whelk shells found only on the northeastern coast. I see a few other people making them from sea shells and the likes which isn't correct. The Lightening Whelk shells are very hard, therefore much more durable. I have to cut them with a metal diamond masonry disk on my angle grinder. All the artwork is hand filed in. You'll see from time to time people out there using a dremmel to make them, but you can tell they just don't look right and have a fake look. Most of my shell effigy work is owned by a private collector in western NY. As you can imagine, this type of work take a long time to do right, but I love how they turn out.

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This is a rattlesnake effigy gorget that would be found normally in the southeast. In particular the moundbuilder culture liked to make these and even made some with spiders on them. They were likely made as a pendent but the name gorget was used way back in the early archaeology years so it stuck. I age mine to look like the original artifacts.

Shell-mask.jpg

This is a pretty large Lightening Whelk shell mask I made a few years ago. Finding shells large enough to make these masks is getting more difficult, but this one turned out great and my customer was thrilled with it.

If you collect Indian artifacts, something like the above would be a centerpiece of a collection. I like to think I offer the struggling collector the change to have a reproduction and not take out a second mortgage to do it. In turn, I mark my pieces overtly and covertly to prevent them being passed off as authentic artifacts.
 
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