Flint

I'm after flint.
Pure black would be best.

It's not easy to find. It don't grow round here.

The best stuff comes from Sufflok, near Grimes Grave. Brandon Blacks.

Shops don't sell it. They say it grows on beaches. And so it does, but not this side of the country, and anyway, beach flint can be very poor quality.

So, anyone know where it can be got?

Big bits.
Flint knapping sized bits.

Hi Lillie, your up late again.
Are you going to make some wonderful neolithic thing out of the flint?

I was taught the rudiments of knapping one year when I was digging the neolithic.
One of the people running the dig got a big lump of flint.
A boulder!
And taught us how to knapp it.

It was fun. and I'd like to try again.

We keep thinking of going down south to rumage around the chalk lands, but the flint you find isn't good quality. It's been in the open too long and has been subject to to much damaging weather.

Which is probably why the neoliths used to mine it.

So, maybe I'll make arrowheads and pass them off as antiquities on ebay and make my fortune.,

There is a story that half the flints in British museums are fake.
back in the victorian antiquarian collector times there was this guy who could knapp flint the old way, and he used to make stuff and flog it to the amatur archaeologists, telling them he had found them in the fields.
It was a nice little earner, apparently!

The best thing I ever saw was a polished flint axe, brought fresh out the ground after 4000 years or so.
It was beautiful, as long as my hand and milky green where the cortex had begun to reform. And so smooth, like glass. Perfect in every detail.
how long it took them to polish it I don't know. It must have been a labour of love. And then it was deposited in a ditch in a causewayd enclosure.
Until a bunch of students came to dig it up.
Ididn't find it. I wish I had, but I saw it not long after it had been found, and I got to hold it.
It was a incredible, beautiful thing.
Strange too, it was like I was awestruck just holding it.
Lovely.

(you could take off your thumb with something like that!)

OOOh, sounds like fun!

If only I could hop a plan to the UK tomorrow and learn to knapp too

Hope you find some soon!

Happy Knapping

Sounds great Lillie, I'll have some! Oh .... I mean, I'll BUY some. I love that stuff. I saw a flint knife in a knife magazine once, it was perfect with an antler handle, I always wanted one since.

[Comments about thumbs now? (you wicked Froggy!).
I removed the dead nail with a razor blade and eventually loosened the black end that was dead and removed it and ... there was new one underneath! Well not a new one but a new version of the old one, but looks new like a babies thumb. The whole thing is electric, but I guess the nerves will settle down soon.]

ravenest said:

[Comments about thumbs now? (you wicked Froggy!).
I removed the dead nail with a razor blade and eventually loosened the black end that was dead and removed it and ... there was new one underneath! Well not a new one but a new version of the old one, but looks new like a babies thumb. The whole thing is electric, but I guess the nerves will settle down soon.]

Click to expand...

OH
MY
GOD

wayyyyyyyyyyy too much information there! lol

as for big bits of flint, i have absolutely no idea where you could get them from....unless you tried to get in touch with a quarry or something.

jue xx

I have 2 pieces I bought off Ebay

my next door neighbour has some lumps of it.......but i don't think she would be happy if i started raiding her garden rockery.

There's flint all over the world (I think), so anyone could probably learn to Knapp.

Other things that flake like that are osidian, and some klinker stones from near old steam railways (but these are small) Something about the heat of the old furnaces seems to produce this vitrified rock.

Anyhow, knapping.

It's best to be shown, but there is a book that tells you the basics.
It's called 'The Nature of Flint and it's subsequent uses' or something like that.
It's the 'everything you wanted to know about flint and then some more' book.

I could dig it out and find the ISBN if anyone is interested.
Don't know how widely avaliable it would be, though.

The best flints are a sort of smooth colour (inside), with no rough bits. Like glass.
So, if you are near a flint source and want to try, look out for stuff like that.

Our distant ancestors worked it out all by themselves without the aid of a book, so it must be possible!

I'll have to keep looking.
Maybe a trek down to beachy head or somewhere would be in order.
There is a valley near Stonehenge where there are supposed to be lovely flints. Maybe I could take a spade...

Ravenest. I'm glad your thumb grew back.
You'll need a nice green one for the crops you told me about
Pretty flowers.

Hi Lillie,

I found this website that sells Flint - might not be big enough for what you want but I thought I'd post it anyway just in case.

http://www.norgeo.co.uk/rock-specimens/sedimentary-rocks/238.html