Onondaga Points for The Canadian Museum of History

Knapped arrowheads

As is often the case, I had a flurry of potential customers contact me early in the summer just as I was heading out the door for a summer of arctic fieldwork.  Thankfully, everyone was understanding of my schedule and now that I'm home, I'm getting back into the workshop and getting caught up on orders.

I shipped the first small order last week; a set of knapped arrowheads made from Onondaga chert to be used in programming this fall at the Canadian Museum of History.

The order was for arrowheads based on the look of the larger dart points shown in the background plate.

 

Signed and ready for shipping.

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Flintknapping Workshop, May 27 & 28, Port au Choix, NL

Please join me at Port au Choix National Historic site for a two day Flintknapping Workshop on May 27 and 28th.  Parks Canada is sponsoring this event and it is FREE to anyone over the age of 16, with all materials and lunch provided.  On Saturday, you will learn the basics of flintknapping and on Sunday you will be hafting your stone tools into wooden hafts using traditional techniques and materials.

Space is limited and interest is high, so prior registration is mandatory.  Please contact Loretta Decker to register: loretta.decker@pc.gc.ca or call 709-623-2797

Fisher's Loft, Port Rexton

Lori overlooking the view
beyond the two main
buildings at Fishers' Loft

Earlier this spring, Lori and I spent a few days at Fishers' Loft in Port Rexton.  We lucked into perfect weather and had a fantastic time hiking, dining, and exploring the surrounding coasts and communities on the Bonavista Peninsula.  The trip was a much needed breather from a hectic spring and what promises to be an even busier summer.  It also gave me a chance to reconnect with an established Elfshot customer and send out a new order of Newfoundland and Labrador inspired knapped jewellery. Here's a look at Fishers' Loft and the neighbouring towns, plus a sneak peak at the Elfshot jewellery that you can now find in the Fishers' Loft gift shop. 

Port Rexton

Puffins nesting near the town of Elliston.

Moose at Fishers' Loft 

The beautiful dining room and guest house at Fishers Loft.

Sunset glow over Trinity

Reproduction Beothuk earrings available at Fishers' Loft Gift Shop

 

The full order of chert necklaces and earrings, plus a few colourful fibre optic pieces. 

Brilliant fibre optic glass

Dorset Palaeoeskimo necklace and earrings

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Oxbow and Besant Points

Oxbow points (Top)
Besant points (Bottom)

 Last week I knapped reproductions of a couple styles of projectile points found on the prairies; Oxbow and Besant.  Oxbow points are the earlier form and according to Record in Stone: Familiar Projectile Points From Alberta they date from 4500-4100 BP.  They were named for the town of Oxbow in Saskatchewan and have very distinctive ears that result from side notches with a deep concave base.  Besant points are found a little later (2500-1350 BP) and have a few more regional and temporal variants, but they all tend to have wide side-notches or an expanding stem.  Both Oxbow and Besant points were likely used on darts that were launched with atlatls.  I made these for a friend who is building a point typology collection assembled with reproductions made by his knapping buddies.

A page from Record in Stone, showing a variety of Oxbow points.  My reproductions are the two at the bottom corners of the page.

The Besant page from Record in Stone, with my reproductions laying in the lower left and right corners.  The lower right hand corner is made from Knife River Flint.  I don't have access to a lot of common knapping stones from the prairies, but somewhere along the way, someone gave me some KRF to try out.

Read to ship.

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

PalaeoIndian Points Fitted with Foreshafts

Lashing the points in place with gut

I've been back in the workshop finishing up a set of PalaeoIndian spears for shipment to Alaska.  I've been returning sporadically to this order for several months and I'm finally wrapping things up this week.  Since the last time I updated this project, I've cleaned up the knapped points with pressure flaking and gave them the characteristic rounded bases of the reference pieces.  I've fitted them to hardwood foreshafts with a combination of pitch, hide glue, sinew, and gut lashing.  

  

The knapped reproductions with reference drawings

 

Softening the spruce gum and
red ochre pitch on the stove

 I wanted to create a bit of variety in the set so that they didn't all look identical.  I used pitch on some and hide glue on others.  I used caribou sinew on some and gut on others.  The points and foreshafts are all different lengths and sizes, although I did try to keep the proximal ends of the foreshafts the same so that all of the foreshafts would be interchangeable with all of the main shafts.

The points hafted in their foreshafts

Forming the rawhide sockets

 For the joint between the foreshafts and the main shafts, I used a simple tapered scarf join.  Scarf joints are a characteristic of the few surviving PalaeoIndian foreshafts found in North America.  I tend to think of scarfed joints as permanently fixed joins, but they can also work as detachable joints.  In this case I cut long tapers on the ends of the foreshafts and made a matching taper on the spruce main shafts.  I wrapped the end of the foreshafts in saran wrap, fit them in place against the matching scarf joint on the main shaft, and then wrapped around the overlapping joint with rawhide.

A dried rawhide socket (left) and the matching scarf joint on a foreshaft (right)

The foreshafts in place while the sockets dry

As the rawhide dries it hardens and bonds to the wooden main shaft while the saran wrap prevents the foreshafts from being glued in place.  The rawhide holds it's shape and creates a tough socket with an inside mold of the matching foreshaft.  I coat the outside of the rawhide with hide glue to add to it's stength.  The end product is a little like a fibre glass socket on the end of the main shaft. I'll update again with some final shots of the assembled spears when everything is dry and ready to ship.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Back in the workshop

For the past couple of weeks I've been able to schedule a couple of days a week in the workshop.  I'm dreadfully far behind on orders and trying to get caught up again before the end of the fiscal year.  While I'm making progress in the workshop, I'll try to resume sharing photos and stories from Elfshot.  Here are a few of the first new pieces to come out of the studio.  They are knapped spear points based on PalaeoIndian artifacts from Alaska.

Spear point reproductions and reference drawings.

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

A Few New Dorset Reproductions

Chert, slate, and nephrite tools

I'm back in the workshop after being away for several weeks.  After a bit of clean-up last week, I'm slowly working my way back into production.  I've lost the calluses on my hands for pressure flaking, so I worked on a bit of ground stone after finishing a pair of simple Dorset Palaeoeskimo chipped stone artifact reproductions.  When the set is complete, these pieces will go into a mock dig kit that I'm helping the Inuit Heritage Trust assemble.  There are a few more Dorset and Thule Inuit pieces to construct for the kit over the next week or two.

A little Dorset knife blade (chert), endscraper (chert), and burin-like tool bit (nephrite).

Edge view of the knife

Knapped chert scraper and knife blade.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Dear Canada Revenue Agency...

If I use empty Scotch bottles in my business as a raw material for jewellery, can I claim the full bottles as a expense on my taxes?  How about the practice bottles?

 Photo Credit: Tim Rast

Northern Plains Projectile Points

Record in Stone and
reproductions

Here is the finished set of Northern Plains projectile points.  This sequence of reproductions spans about 10,000 years of prehistory.   I've attempted some of these point styles in the past, while others were new to me.  Either way, I relied heavily on the Archaeological Society of Alberta's publication "Record in Stone: Familiar Projectile Points from Alberta".  This book has been periodically updated over the years and remains an extremely useful publication.

I don't want all the points in a set like this to look like they were made by one person at one time.   If very different tools or techniques were used to make the original artifacts, I'll try to mimic those as best that I can.  I also made each projectile point from a different type of stone to try to build variety into the set.

The complete set of reproductions arranged in chronological order from top to bottom

Spot the reproduction...

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Alberta Spear Points

Reproduction Alberta
Projectile Point

I've returned to knapping a bit more in the workshop this week.  This afternoon I took a stab at a couple Alberta spear points for a set of plains projectile points. I'm satisfied with both of them although I only need one.  One looks better in person and one looks better in photos.  I'll see how the rest of the set turns out before I decide which (if either) will be included in the box.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

MUNARCH Pressure Flaking

We had a good mix of seasoned knappers and new comers at the MUNArch pressure flaking workshop this evening.  Here is a sampling of the points produced this evening.  It's always fun to see what people come up with.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

MUNArch Flintknapping

A dedicated group in the Great Hall at Queen's College

We were delayed a few days in starting the 2015 MUNArch flintknapping workshop due to the blizzard on Monday, but we were able to begin percussion knapping on Thursday night.  Next Monday we will work on pressure flaking and then finish with hafting our tools next Thursday.

A few pieces for display

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

MUNArch Flintknapping 2015

Obsidian and
chert arrowheads

MUNArch, the archaeology student association at Memorial University of Newfoundland, is once again sponsoring a flintknapping workshop this March.  The event will be held over 3 evenings, March 16, 19, and 23rd in the Great Hall at Queen's College on the MUN campus in St. John's.

March 16: Introduction to Percussion Knapping

In this class, students will learn the basics of using hammerstones and antler billets to strike flakes from cores. By the end of the evening, you will have produced your own hard hammer and soft hammer flakes, a uniface and a biface.

Percussion knapping using hammerstones and antler billets

   

March 19: Introduction to Pressure Flaking

Learn how to use copper and antler tools to turn flakes into arrowheads and other stone tools by pushing off small, precise flakes.

A copper-tipped pressure flaker, obsidian arrowheads, and a hammerstone

March 23: Special Projects 

Put your new skills to use to make a complete stone tool.  Work with sinew, wood, and natural glues to haft your knapped work.

Hafted stone tools

Start time is 6:30 PM on each evening.

The workshops are open to anyone over age 16 - you do not need to be a MUN student to attend:

Prices: $50 for all three nights, $40 for two, or $25 for one.
Space is limited, so please register early to reserve your spot.  Please contact MUNArch: munarch@gmail.com to register.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Assembling Jewellery

Pairs of Recent Indian Arrowheads

I've moved on to assembling the knapped points that I showed on Friday into necklaces and earrings.  I needed to make a few more small points in order to make enough pairs of similar sized points for earrings.  The larger arrowheads and endblades are wired individually for necklaces.  I needed to order some more leather cord and accidentally bought it from China, so it may be a few weeks before the necklaces are assembled.  The customer doesn't need the order until the summer tourist season, so the timing shouldn't be an issue.

Not quite as chaotic as it first appears;  most of the points are partnered up to make earring pairs.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast