Always excellent threads!

Thanks for sharing!

Smashy, you ever read/listen to the nonfiction Atlas of a Lost World?  It's definetly up your ally

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307908658/ref=cm_sw_r_apa_i_DepCEbMHM0164

@Smashy

Any idea what this is?
It’s been hanging on a wall at my Dad’s house for over 30 years.

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Looks like a ruler.  

Seriously, I dunno. Never seen one before.

No, but it sounds interesting. Thanks.

Did you figure out what it is?

Someone sent me a PM.

Mississippian native ceremonial monolithic stone axe, circa 1300-1500.

Cool. A little advanced for my taste, but not bad.  

Still haven’t found the arrow head I shot the deer with but I found several other ones he made for me. The white one is 5 1/2” long.


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That might be the third one found.  I seem to recall during the Mississippi flood of '93(?), someone found one in an area scoured by running flood water.  I seem to recall it was the second one known.

Thanks for posting.

I am  also getting in touch with my inner neanderthal.

@subvet707

How is that knife blade attached?

I don't know if I'll be able to keep updating this with the latest spear I started. Work is pretty intense, things are difficult at the hospital right now. Lots of work. I'm grateful to not be out of work like a lot of people, but it's tiring. I'm often too tired in my free time to work on anything at home. I'll do what I can.

He basically knapped a “tang” on the blade and set it into a pocket with epoxy. Don’t know how correct it would be but it looks cool. I guess you could use pine pitch in place of epoxy.

Stay safe at work! Make sure you keep yourself healthy

Not sure how strong it would be, but interesting look.

doesn’t take lateral pressure very well but you can put down pressure on it no problem. Gutted a deer with it before. It was more decoration than usable. He made Me two And one broke at the handle when dropped

Nice.

Bumping this before it gets archived. I'll try to get more posted this weekend.

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More shaping and test-fitting.

Absolutely fascinating, Smashy!

I was one of those kids, growing up I could find a fossil in the middle of a city street. Cool ones too!

No matter how hard I looked, I could never find an arrowhead. There’s people around me that have impressive arrow head / spear point collections. Not me!

You do great work. After I got out of the Marine Corps, I was an Anthropology major in school. Each year, we would hold a stone-age fair demonstrating the use of primitive weapons, fire making, flint knapping, weaving, clothes making, etc. It was a lot of fun and got a lot of attention on campus.

Mine are all modern made.



Sounds like fun.

I'm trying to decide if I should use notches on this one like injun-ear suggested. Its not a large spear so I might try that with a bigger one. Not sure yet...

Ready for the next battle in the tribal war. Or hog hunting, if you're hungry.

I call this one Green Tip.  

Several more are next in line to be built, just trying to decide which one to do next. The smaller one here is about 7" long, the larger one is around 8".



And Mammoth Killer is still waiting it's turn. It's around 11" I think.

@Smashy (appropriate)

Have you ever made a Sail Éille?(shillelagh)

No. Not a stone age weapon. The club on page 1 I guess would be an ancient ancestor of that. Less refined, but effective.

I would argue that my Gaelic ancestors didnt get out of the stone age until abogut a century ago.

Ever been to an Irish wake?

good stuff in this thread

Good point.  

I never really tried making my own weapons (aside from slings and assorted things when I was a kid) until I decided to try my hand at making stone age stuff. So I'm not experienced with the more refined stuff like that. But maybe someday when I have a little more time for it.

Yes, it is. I tried knapping off and on for years. It take an eye I don't have.

Along with updated pictures, I'll provide some details here about making the shaft, since I had to approach it differently than my other spears. For those of you not interested in reading the fascinating details of a stick, you may want to move on to another thread.

As I explained earlier, the shafts I used for my normal size spears are natural/rustic walking sticks that I strip and refinish (to get rid of the lacquer coating and make it look natural). They're available in different thicknesses so I can get bigger ones if necessary, depending on the size of the head.

But Mammoth Killer is different. The biggest walking stick isn't big enough for this project. I had to find something myself, which at first was kind of frustrating because most sticks/branches I find around here are too thin and flimsy or crooked for even a regular spear, much less an oversized one.

Last November my son was home for a visit after graduating Marine boot camp, and we were walking along a river over on the coast, in the brackish area just before it empties into the ocean. There are some downed trees there, and we were poking around there to see what we could find. He found a branch that was big and hefty, probably 15 feet long, and had lots of small branches sticking out of the sides. I checked it out and realized the middle portion of it was exactly what I was looking for. It hadn't been submerged, it was totally dry. Looked like it had just been laying there for years. So I cut the middle part out and we brought it home. Here's a picture of the area just before we found it.



I've seen too many documentaries on TV  where the Neanderthals are walking around with perfectly straight, smooth spears obviously made from a closet hanger pole they bought at Home Depot. This one has some crookedness to it so it looks natural, but it's straight enough overall to serve as a spear shaft. That's exactly what I wanted. It also has knots and bumps which I'm not shaving off and sanding smooth, to keep it's natural look. It's very sturdy and strong. The diameter is 1 3/4".



But the color was kinda funky. The lower portion was a dark brown with gray patches and the upper part was all gray. I'm not sure how it ended up with those colors, but it didn't look how I envisioned the finished product. I tried going over it with neutral stain to bring out the wood's natural color, which is what I do with the other shafts after I strip them, but it only brought out a little color. It sill looked just... weird.



So I got creative with other stain colors, dry-brushing it in streaky, patchy areas, as unprofessional as possible, rubbing it in and wiping it down, to give it some nice color but an uneven 'natural' appearance to enhance the whole primitive look. I think it turned out pretty well. And now, the real work begins... carving out and shaping the end to fit the head to it.

But for now, a few pictures of how it looks at this point.

I dig it.

You should look into Clovis/ fluted auriculate american paleo forms. Thinner base but thicker more robust edges and point so less likely to break than stemmed points.  Also look into small triangular points like fort ancient, you can make shafts with a socket to hold the small points and not need to worry about splitting shafts and the  repro points are probably cheap so you could practice more and maybe even hunt small game.

A major upside of Points like ft ancient is that they are so small that they do not change the balance of the shaft, so you can practice with blunts.

I'll look into it.

Damn, these big ones are a lot of work. I'm barely half-way there.

Nothing says "FUCK YOU" more than stabbing a mothafucka in the face with a giant pointy rock.

Freaking awesome stuff, keep it coming!  

I appreciate this more now that I have tried to find a good haft myself.

Awesome

Not finished yet, I still have a lot of work to do on it.

But here's a teaser for now.

Mammoth Killer is almost finished. I took a different approach with this one. I've been experimenting with different aging/antiquing methods to make it look like an old relic that was just dug up out of the ground. Trying that and some other stuff I've never done before and it's turning out nice I think. I should be able to have some pictures posted this weekend.

Next up is a knife.

@Downtrodden
I just ordered a copy.

I'm using Ötzi's dagger as the inspiration for the general design of this one, but it won't be a replica.

Mine will be bigger, and it will be based on his but I'll make it my own.

I’m gonna go ahead and rate this thread “fun”.

We don’t have a “fun” thread in GD yet.