My Background

Growing up in Missouri we were always looking for arrowheads any time we were out in the fields. It was then that I became curious about how they were made, but it wasn't until much later in life that I decided to give it a try. I gathered up some rocks, made some tools and went at it. Boy did I have a lot to learn. I struggled with it for a couple of years, then finally met some real flintknappers that took me in and got me going in the right direction. With a lot of encouragement and support, along with lots of hard work, practice and plain old stubbornness, I was able to learn one of the oldest crafts known to man. 

I use many different tools, materials and techniques to create an arrowhead. There are percussion flakers, pressure flakers, notchers and abraders for tools. Flint, chert, obsidian, jaspers, agates and more are used for the arrowheads and blades. Sometimes I even use glass. Knappers use terms like direct percussion, indirect percussion, pressure flaking, punch notching, parallel and oblique flaking and more. To listen to flintknappers talk to each other sounds like a foreign language. A language I am glad to know.