Archery Past

If you read the interview with Bill on www.modern-flintknapping.com under the "about us" header and click on "about Bill" you will see that he started making bows when he was 12 years old. Archery and flintknapping went hand and hand for Bill. His love for archery lead to him competing in archery. In 1976 he won all three divisions(field, indoor, target) of the Bow Hunter Restricted category for the state of NC. 1976 was the third year in a row he had won the field division thus he was able to "retire" the trophy for that division, which allowed him to keep the trophy forever.

Modern Ross Blade

At Modern Flintknapping we often like to "modernize" the replication of artifacts. By this we mean we may make them thinner than the normal original artifacts were made. We may take a piece and reshape it in various ways. We may take two designs of artifacts and mix them, using components of both, to get a hybrid design. Or we may come up with a totally new design of our own.

This is where our name "modern" flintknapping derives from. We believe this helps keep the art of flintknapping interesting as well as allowing an artist's mind to constantly expand and come up with new designs.

Above is a picture of a Ross blade that Bill made few months back. It is 9 inches long, 3 inches wide with a diameter of .30 giving it a W/T ratio of 10/1. This is a higher W/T ratio than you would normally see on an actual Ross artifact. This blade was made using a pressure lever device which causes the large distinct flakes. This is a totally different technique compared to percussion which is what is normally used to make Ross blades

Bo Earl's "TheThin Man"

Today I had the pleasure of measuring Bo Earl's "The Thin Man" point. This is a percussion piece and as the name implies, it is very thin.

The piece measures 4.1 inches long, 2.4 inches wide and .235 inches in diameter at the thickest point.

The piece has an average diameter of .196 inches and an average width of 2.2 inches giving it a super average W/T ratio of 11.2/1. The standard W/T ratio is 10.1/1(click directly on "grading and scoring" on the main site, for it is not listed on the drop down menu, to see how I figure average diameters)

This blade has a score of 637 using the Modern Flintknapping Scoring System. For more info. on the scoring system check out http://www.modern-flintknapping.com/grading-system.html

Check out Bo's gallery at http://www.flintknappers.com/store.php?sid=Nw%3D%3D to see pictures of the piece.

Here are some pictures I took of it as well.
































I would like to thank Bo for giving me the privilege to measure such a piece.