A few Arctic artifact reproductions

Harpoon heads and foreshaft

I've been working one day a week and taking evening classes at Memorial University this semester.  This week is Reading Week, so I have a bit of a break from teaching and studying to focus on Elfshot again.  Rather than two days a week, it looks like I'll be able to spend a full four days this week in the workshop.  That will help a lot with getting caught up on a backlog of orders.  I'm still several months behind in work, but at least now I'm able to get some projects finished and shipped off to the customers who have been extremely patient with me over the past winter.

This is a reproduction Thule Inuit harpoon that I'm working on for the Manitoba Museum.  My goal is to have it ready to ship by the weekend.

At this point, all of the pieces are blocked out and I'm working on all of the joints.  These harpoons have a lot of precision fit pieces.  Some are fixed and some are moveable, so it always takes a while to find the right fit and friction for all of the assembled parts.  The materials used include everything from whale bone and walrus ivory to slate and wood.  The harpoon line and lashings will be sealskin and sinew.

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

Spring Cleaning

With the Canadian Archaeological Association conference over and the Ikaahuk artifact reproductions delivered, it is time to take a deep breath and move into the final phase of filling spring orders.  To begin, I desperately needed to clear the winter's dust out of the workshop and lay out a fresh tarp to work on.

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Another day in the workshop

Palaeoeskimo scraper reproduction in Newfoundland chert

Another day in the workshop is gone.  I've been plugging away at a few simple Palaeoeskimo tools to try to get back into the rhythm of knapping.  Its been so long since I've knapped at production volumes, that I need to turn the blisters on my hands back into calluses.  I spent most of the afternoon preparing tools and materials for an Open Minds session tomorrow.  I'll be helping grade 5 students make ground slate tools at The Rooms for the next three Tuesdays.  I need about a half day worth of preparation time ahead of the half day workshop.  Usually, I do the preparation the day before the workshop, so it always feels like an Open Minds session occupies two days of my work week.  Instead of waiting until next Monday, I'm going to try preparing my kit for next Tuesday when I get home from The Rooms tomorrow afternoon.  If I can get into the routine of finishing an Open Minds day with a fully stocked and ready to go kit, then future sessions should only feel like one day away from my regular workshop schedule, rather than two days.   

I don't think I showed this photo yet.  This the completed obsidian necklace that I was hafting last week.  Right now it's bound for Australia.

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

Pendants in progress

I have a few pendants in progress in the workshop.  The wood shaft on the obsidian arrowhead will be trimmed down and drilled so that it can be strung on a leather cord.  The walrus ivory bear head above it is one of two that I'm working on at the moment.  The one shown here is inspired by Dorset Palaeoeskimo artifacts from the High Arctic.  Its coming along nicely, so far, although I want to leave the finishing for at least one more day.  I don't like carving too quickly.  I think slower carvings turn out better.  It takes time to plan each cut.

 Photo Credit: Tim Rast

Slow return to the workshop

I'm slowly returning to the workshop after what seems like months away.  I did spend a bit of time working on projects in September, but between travel, office work, and NLAS responsibilities since then, its been impossible for me to schedule any time in the workshop, let alone put in a full day's work.  Hopefully that will change next week and I can get some orders filled before Christmas.  Its going to be a busy winter season making reproductions, if I can just make the time to get back into my studio.  I'm very grateful to have such patient clients.

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

March is going to be busy

An Open Minds workshop at The Rooms

It's kind of a hectic month.  I still have a couple big orders to fill in the studio, but workshops and demonstrations have really piled up in my March schedule as well.  At the moment,  I have 14 workshops, one knapping demonstration and a public talk scheduled across three different provinces during the month of March.  Some of those workshops are with elementary school kids while others are with university students and members of archaeological societies in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Securing the gut hafting on an ulu
at a MUNArch workshop.

Tonight is the second MUNArch ground stone ulu workshop.  We had 10 people come out on Monday night and everyone finished a slate ulu.  This is basically the same workshop that I do with the Open Mind's students at The Rooms, but we use sinew and gut lashing instead of string and people are responsible for chipping their own blanks and cutting their own handles.  For kids, we start with sawed blanks and handles that are already cut to length.

A Little Passage
(pre-contact Beothuk) knife,
ready to glue and lash together.

In the studio I'm continuing to work on Beothuk and Intermediate period reproductions.  The Intermediate period pieces must match a specific suite of artifacts from Sheshatshiu, Labrador, while the Beothuk pieces can be a little more generic.  I'm pulling from a lot of different archaeological and historical references for the Beothuk pieces.  For example the knife on the right is based on a biface found by Ralph Pastore on Inspector Island but the handle comes from a wood handle that was photographed by James Howley for his 1915 publication, The Beothuck or Red Indians.  For the Intermediate period pieces from Sheshatshiu, I'm using ethnographic Innu artifacts to help fill in some of the blanks.

The scraper in the upper left hand corner is meant to be a reproduction of the scraper in the photo immediately below it.

The original artifacts will be shown in the display as they were found and the reproductions will illustrate how they may have appeared to the people who originally made them, complete with lashings and handles and all the missing pieces that were not preserved in the ground.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

First Order of 2014 - Shipped!

Antler billets and pressure flaking kits

The first Elfshot order of 2014 is out the door and shipped.  A friend in New York ordered a bunch of flintknapping kits and moose antler billets to use with his students. It was the perfect sized order to ease back into the workshop.  Most of the week has gone into planning a flintknapping trip to western Canada for the spring, outlining some potential work with the Inuit Heritage Trust for next winter, and writing a couple of brief reviews.  I am so grateful for (and jealous of) people who are good at organizing and writing, because I find both activities extremely difficult.  This morning, I managed to finish a short summary of the Newfoundland and Labrador Archaeological Society's first year for the Provinicial Archaeology Office's annual report series and this afternoon I'm continuing to stab away at a book review that is increasingly overdue.  Right now, the closest thing that I can find to motivation for writing is a desire to pad out the rest of the work week with a few more productive hours so that tomorrow's planned snowshoe, greasy pub, and wine tasting adventure feels like an earned break.

Assorted small moose antler billets.  The smallest ones can double as pressure flakers.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Back to the Grindstone.

The dry grinding wheel still works fine.

I broke my grindstone.  I spent the morning working on an book review that I'd planned to wrap up in December and then in the afternoon I moved into the workshop to tackle a few copper pressure flakers for a friend in New York.  Of course, just as I was about to finish up in the workshop I broke a gear in my wet/dry grinder because I tried to rush thawing the block of ice in the wet grinder reservoir to get the wheel spinning again.  Now it looks like it won't ever spin again.

There's still lots of snow in
the yard, even after the rain
and warm temperatures
yesterday.

There is a nylon gear inside the grinder that runs the wet wheel and it is designed to fail in order to save the motor from burning out when there is too much resistance on the grinding wheel.  Its like blowing a fuse.  Unfortunately the machine is over 15 years old and apparently that replacement part is no longer produced, so it looks like I'm in the market for a new wet grinder.  I spent the last half of the afternoon looking around St. John's for a new one, but aside from some much smaller wet/dry grinders at Canadian Tire, I haven't had any luck finding a replacement, yet.  Even online it looks like it could be a challenge finding an upgrade.  I'll keep hunting.

The pressure flakers turned out fine.  I should be able to get the kits assembled and ready to ship tomorrow.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Puttering away

A cluttered toolbox

With a half dozen small projects on the go and no deadlines looming until early November, I've been a little scatter-brained in the workshop lately.  I'm starting new projects faster than I'm finishing old ones so its beginning to feel like there are a lot of loose ends that need tying up.  Hopefully next week, I'll be wrapping up a few projects and begin delivering them.  In the meantime, I've got half-finished Beothuk arrows, copper pressure flakers, ground slate and nephrite endblades and assorted rawhide and sinew projects laying around.

Cut handles and copper ground wire for pressure flakers.

Partially finished nephrite (L) and ground slate (R) endblades.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Tillering and some fall scheduling

Tillering a bow with a stone flake

I spent a few hours working on the Beothuk bow reproductions today, although the rainy weather has kept me inside for most of the tail end of this week.  I'm still plugging away at the prep work for this fall's workshops and demonstrations.  In St. John's, I'll be returning to The Rooms at least twice in October; once for an Open Minds workshop with school kids and then again on October 19th for International Archaeology Day.  I'll be volunteering with the Newfoundland and Labrador Archaeological Society on that day and demonstrating flintknapping.  It will be a casual open house type event and I'll be working some Ramah chert throughout the afternoon.  I'm sure that I'll have the Beothuk bow reproductions there as well, so if you want to see them and have a chat, please stop by.  In November, I'll be heading to Nunavut for a couple weeks for workshops sponsored by Parks Canada.  I alluded to these workshops about this time last year, but they were put on hold for a few months.  I'll be in Resolute Bay from November 11th to 15th and Grise Fiord from November 18th to 22nd.  If you know anyone in these communities who might be interested in learning to flintknap and haft stone tools, please let them know that registration for these workshops will be taking place shortly.

Drying the bow over a hotplate

Back in the workshop, I returned to heating, drying, bending and tillering the Mountain Ash Beothuk bow reproductions.  They dried noticeably on their own over the past couple of days in the cool dry basement.  One had started to develop a slight twist in the limbs, which I wanted to get ahead of before it set in permanently.  I twisted the limbs back using dry heat and continued to dry  the bows over a small hotplate for another hour each.  This hour of heating made the bows much stiffer than they had been yet, so I decided to do a little more tillering.  I'm not counting on the wood being stable yet, so I didn't tiller them all the way to a full draw, but they are coming along nicely.

Utilizing a flake to scrape the belly of the bow

I used a chert flake to scrape inside the belly of the bow while it was drawn on the tillering board, to help the limbs bend evenly.  I don't always use stone tools when I'm in my workshop, but if they are the best tool available for a particular job, I don't mind working with them.  For example, when I drill holes in slate, I genuinely prefer to use a bow drill with a nephrite bit, because its quicker than an electric drill and it makes a more authentic looking reproduction.  Today when I was looking around my shop at the metal files, knives, and scrapers that I have on hand, it was this little stone flake that caught my eye and turned out to be the best tool for the job.  It had the perfect edge shape, angle, and sharpness to quickly and carefully scrape the belly of the bow.  There's also no danger of it leaving the wrong type of tool marks on the finished bow.    Whatever trace it leaves on the wood will be correct for the time period and Beothuk culture that the bow is meant to represent.

This is the unmodified flake that worked so well.  I primarily used the distal edge of the flake (the bulb is towards my palm).  At first glance its a fairly straight edge, but it actually had a soft concave section in the middle that worked well along the edges of the belly and a convex section towards the point that worked well for scraping into the middle of the flat wood.

The camera flash kind of washed out the edges of the tiny usewear flakes that appeared along the edge as I worked the wood, but I think you can make out a slight polishing along the edge with some shallow scalloping above it where millimetre long flakes chipped off.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Cleaning out the shed

Airing everything out

I didn't do much tidying up in my workshop after my last few jobs in the spring before heading into the field.  So when I got home a few days ago it wasn't a very inviting space.  The dust and debris from the spring work was ankle deep and strewn across the floor.  I tackled a first big cleaning today by hauling all the floor clutter out, opening up the windows and doors and giving everything a blast with the leaf blower to get the dust moving.  It'll take a few more days like today to get all the shelves organized and everything stowed away, but getting that grey layer of dust off everything makes the place a bit more colourful and inviting.

Buckets of various raw materials; rocks, bones, antler, wood, leather

This will be my workspace for the fall, winter and spring, so I'd better make it functional and comfortable again.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Back in the shed, briefly

Endblade preforms made on
Newfoundland chert

Today is one of those days where the only motivation that I can find to pull myself away from the computer and head out to the shed to do some actual work is the need to take a photo or two to stick up on this blog.  So here they are; photographic proof that for a few minutes this afternoon I did something constructive, made some headway on spring orders, and escaped the backlog morass of e-mails, writing, random Youtube clips and tax returns that I've been mired in for the first half of this week. I made it outside and knapped a few chert preforms.

I have a couple interesting orders to work on that are full of Palaeoeskimo and Maritime Archaic reproductions.  It shouldn't take too long to get back into the swing of things, but for now, I turned a few chert flakes into preforms.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Doing stuff

Back in the shed!

I still have a fair bit of computer mapping left to do this fall, but I've been getting a little stir crazy trying to make myself sit at the computer all day.  I got a first draft of the site plans done last week, so I've been looking for slightly more active tasks around the house.  I have a handful of Elfshot orders that I've been slow to start, but I finally got into the shed today to start work on a harpoon for one of the guys that I work with during the summer.  There are a couple other small knapping projects and an atlatl dart to make before Christmas.

Lori and I did a few little jobs around the house this weekend.  We planted 150 crocus bulbs in the back yard.  One of the downsides of long seasons in the field is that we don't really get to enjoy the yard in the summer.  Planting bulbs seems like a good fit for our lifestyle.  They go into the ground later in the season when we are home and they come up early enough in the spring that we are still here to enjoy them.

If you've been to our house you will have probably noticed that we've been painting the porch door for a couple of years.  Sadly, that painting project is finally coming to a conclusion.  Another couple coats and it should be hanging up again sometime tomorrow.  I'll miss the green tape.

This harpoon is a good place to get started back in the shed.  The guy I'm making it for gave me detailed plans to work from.  Its an interesting piece.  It isn't specific to any one culture, but combines stylistic elements from all the different archaeological cultures that he's worked on. 

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Procrastinating

Tidying the shed

It seems to be taking a long time to get back into a fall routine this year.  I finally cleaned out the mess left from last spring in my workshop.  So there's at least one less excuse to not getting out there and working again.  I can't believe how green and warm the backyard still is.  My first Open Minds classroom visit is this week, so hopefully that will help me gain some momentum in working with rocks again.

Photo Credit: Lori White

Slowly getting back to work

Beer Bottle to Arrowhead Booklets

I'm trying to get back into production.  I haven't been out to the workshop yet since I got back from holidays, but maybe today will be the day.  I need to make a batch of pressure flakers to go into knapping kits for the Craft Council Shop and other spring orders.  But I also have the booklets to assemble and that's much warmer inside work. 

Too Green for January

Not that its cold here.  Its still very mild in St. John's - we had a green Christmas and its been a pretty green 2011 so far as well.  I just need to psyche myself up to get back to work.  The next few weeks promise some fun stuff to keep busy with including some Little Passage (Beothuk) arrows and a Dorset Palaeoeskimo knife or two.  While I'm working on those I might play around with some obsidian knives and arrows.  I like working obsidian in demos and for fun, but I'm on the wrong side of the continent to get much use out of it for artifact reproductions.  However, some holiday reading gave me a slightly more fantastic source of inspiration for some obsidian pieces.  

Plus there's this haircut to fix. 

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

WindRiver LED Hat Review

Hat light, not lense flare

You might have noticed a strange glow on the front of my hat in workshop photos over the past few weeks.  That's because I got rid of my greasy old painters cap and upgraded to a WindRiver LED hat.  It looks and fits like a normal ball cap, but it has three little lights on the brim.  I got it at Mark's Work Wearhouse at the beginning of November and I've been using it ever since.

3 Bright LED Lights

I always wear a hat and coveralls in the workshop because a lot of my work is dusty and whalebone and antler dust likes to ride into the house on my hair and clothes.  I also do a lot of fine work with my hands and extra light is a bonus.  The new hat takes care of both those things.  Its so much easier than fussing with headlamps and I always have a bit of extra light when I'm rummaging through boxes looking for rocks or tools.

4 Replaceable Batteries

Mark's website claims a 30 hour battery life, although I'm pretty sure the packaging on the hat itself claimed something like 72 hours.  Either way, I haven't drained them yet.  The battery pack is tucked under the band inside the hat and there are 4 replaceable CR2032 batteries; 2 for the front LED light and 2 for the under the brim lights.

The hat comes in a bunch of different solid colours as well as various camouflage patterns.  I picked an ivory colour, because its the same colour as the dust it'll get covered in.  There is also a heavier, insulated version with ear flaps.  The standard ball cap version that I have is $25 and I think the insulated version was around $35-$40.  Although, according to the Mark's Work Wearhouse website the LED ball caps are on sale for $18.74 until Dec 5th, 2010.

The latest in workshop fashion

There's a padded button on the brim, beside the 2 brim lights, that turns the hat on and off.  It has three settings - low (under the brim lights only), medium (front light only) and high (all three lights).  I usually have it turned on high all the time, but the low setting illuminates your face and would be good for ghost stories.

WindRiver LED Hat

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast