stone knifes?

[weasle]

How well do stone knives work as far as cutting and skinning. Can you post some pics of knives or skinning deer with them? is there anyone on here that could make me a knife and if you could can you pm me? thanks, Drake

[Stone Knife]

Here is a pic of a knife that my friend had made for me, the handle is off a shed i found. I have never used it but i will one of these deer seasons i thought it would be neat to shoot a deer with a stone point then take care of it with a stone knife. There is no doubt in my mind that this knife will do the job of dressing and skinning it is extremely sharp. After all stone is all man had for thousands of years it worked fine. I like to look for points most of the points and scrapers i find aren't very fancy but I'm sure they got the job done.


   

[Osagetree]

Stone knives,,, top two made by our very own Knife River and I hafted the antler handle. The other is obsidian Knapped by a friend of mine an I added the handle. Used the top one a couple times to cut my climbing rope and leather straps,,, worked great for that! Never got a chance to skin, gut or cut anything else.
 

[the Ferret]

Here's a pic of a javie being skinned by Terry Petko using a flint shard (piece of flint without a handle)with Mike Westvang (the javie shooter)assisting

 

[the Ferret]

Here's a double edged flint knife

 

and a single edged

 

[Osagetree]

Mickey, that 4th arrow head from the left is deadly looking. Not that the rest would not be.

Cool knives too!

[the Ferret]

Yea, not legal here in Ohio though Joe being barbed and all, but it does look mean.

[MYSTIKBOW]

here is a really nice, and very sharp, obsidian blade a friend made for me. I hafted it to this piece of antler I had.
 

[MYSTIKBOW]

The blade on top in this photo is a nice piece
of chert from texas. Unfortunately the flash washed out most of the detail. It has some very nice color to it. I will have to get a better pic of it.
 

[knife river]

I hope Bob Walker will have some good stories to share in a few days...    

[Smilingg]

I have only used flint and obsidian on deer but here is my take: Skinning is no problem at all.

 However, the first field dressing cut,the initial incision, is difficult because of all the hair. I wound up using steel to make a 1/2 inch cut and then I had no problem using stone/glass for the rest of the gutting.

Also, the butchering went fine except for one small problem--the backstraps. With steel you can cut right done to the spine/vertebrae to get every last bit of meat with no worries about breaking off the tip of the knife.

I was uneasy about really scraping/pressing the tips of stone/glass knives into something hard like bone. The tips are obviously much more fragile than steel, especially on obsidian. I never have broken a stone head, but I did leave a little bit more backstrap meat on animals for fear of "digging" it out, so to speak.

Overall I'd rate stone/glass as 95% as effective as steel for a hunter's purposes. The pieces I have used have been unhafted.

[knife river]

Smilingg, I've used unmodified flakes to make initial incisions.  Worked a lot better than knapped edges -- hair didn't accumulate on the single edge.  Had the same experiences as you about "digging" out the last bits of meat.  Stone/glass is brittle, which allows us to knap it, but that's also its drawback.

[bowmac]

I have used this Neckknife for years. I also carry an extra gunflint in the sheath. Sheath is in pretty bad shape but I made and have used this knife and sheath for about 20 years.

 

[adeeden]

I just made this one up today, I plan on carrying it this fall and hopefully putting it to use!
 

[fflintlock]

If I remember what I read, and had a Doctor tell me, Brain Surgeons use obsidian to cut with, it is the sharpest know instrument known to man !
 Does that answer your question about sharpness ?
 I had a good knife, and like a fool, traded it. One day, I'll get another.
Just check out some of the knappers and pick up a peice of rock there working on, or some of the flakes, and see if you can't get cut ! In a heart beat !!
 Of course, if it's used alot or abused in some way, they have to be re-knapped, some what. I learned that from shoot'n a flintlock. This rock will shave off metal, if it is knapped correctly, a store bought knife won't.
 By the way, some real nice look'n knives posted above !

[weasle]

very nice knives. keep them coming.

[BryanB]

This is one I carried last season, but never got a chance to use.
 

This one is for display purposes only.
Bryan
 

[hs6181]

all the knives are beautiful

BryanB did you make yours? Those are really nice

[Linc]

TTT

[Ghost Dog]

Man I love TG! Where else do you get to see great looking knives like these, great looking selfbows, leather work, knapped heads, and more.