Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Mar 2, 2021 18:15:59 GMT -5
The frustrating thing about this site is I keep finding square bases of really nicely flaked knives but never a whole one. Some guy 4000 years ago really had some knapping skills bit I guess because he was making the blades so thin, he broke a lot in half. I think my buddy Harley called this flaking error "bending the blade". Sure wish I'd find a whole one sometime because half a blade is like four inches long. These were big ones.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Mar 2, 2021 18:09:16 GMT -5
Howdy folks, Our vacant lot has s flint/chert quarry right next to an Amerind camp. Seldom find a finished piece there as it was apparently used to manufacture what we call "trade blanks" Basically these were percussion flaked large bifaces that could be used to manufacture large finished points or knives. By making these to trade it eliminated the need to transport heavy nodules large distances. The largest piece on the right is almost a foot long. The long pointy one in the middle is something I've never seen before, triangular in cross section and flaked at a very steep angle. Tip is worn almost like it was some kind of digging implement. I've seen similar "picks of obsidian near Clear Lake in California but this is a first for this ranch. The two smaller pieces on the left are about four or five inches and are the more common sort of blank I find. Expect these were used to make projectile points which around here were spears or atl atl dart points. trade blanks by lonerider652000, on Flickr
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Mar 1, 2021 18:45:57 GMT -5
Howdy folks, Just a couple of pics from our home in Texas during our six days of Hell. Two severe ice storms, eight inches of snow, and temps down to zero. And I moved to Texas because I like hot *L*. No power or water for all six days. Got to live like cave men in front of the fireplace. Had to maintain enough heat to keep the pipes from freezing and keep our old cockatoo alive. Cooked in front of the fire and thank God for Sweet Baby Ray's beef jerky and hot cocoa. The bush in the picture is a antique rose that came over from Scotland with a sea captain. We bought our home from his great grandchildren. Those friggin icicles hanging from our back deck were as long as five feet long and stuck in the ground like spears when they finally dropped. Global warming my arse! rose by lonerider652000, on Flickr icicle by lonerider652000, on Flickr
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Mar 1, 2021 18:28:42 GMT -5
Howdy folks, Had a chance to take a little walk across my shooting buddy's hill where there is an old Amerind campsite. Found several artifacts, a white chert curved knife blade, a small teardrop shaped knife or discarded point blank and an unusual variant of a Kerr Knife ( the largest triangular piece). The larger knife, like more refined Kerr knives, has cortex from the chert nodule on each side right where you'd grip the blade for butchering. Pretty cool fits the fingers perfectly. DSCN1237artifacts by lonerider652000, on Flickr
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 27, 2021 10:15:35 GMT -5
I'd go with blue quartz, or blue aventurine if that's included mica. That one striped example sure does look like swirlstone from south Africa but swirlstone has much finer grained structure and is a bit softer, as I think it has feldspar and sodalite as part of it's makeup if I'm remembering correctly.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 27, 2021 10:08:40 GMT -5
Wow, great polish for obsidian and an interesting shape.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 27, 2021 10:06:50 GMT -5
Great job! One of my favorite materials to see cabbed.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 24, 2021 7:10:20 GMT -5
Yep, what Roy said. A trade name for a different variation from the same area. I agree with Roy too in that the old original more brecciated and dramatic patterned material was much nicer then what you see now.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 13, 2021 9:38:00 GMT -5
Wow, that is a tough tumble! Need a lot of plastic pellets for padding and if you haven't tried it, the expensive tin oxide polish like you'd use for obsidian. Full disclosure, I've tried this a couple of times with amazonite and sunstone and did not get results much better than yours.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 12, 2021 17:55:19 GMT -5
The smalls I use are all agate and jasper so they don't wear out. I find equal hardness of contacting surfaces is good to rub the polish around and is good for achieving the final polish but maybe that's just me. Not sure abut hardness for all aquarium gravel. I don't really hunt them. They just come from small chips from other processes like trimming and cracking up rough.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 12, 2021 15:20:40 GMT -5
Oh I should have specified, the polished smalls I use in the tumbler are about 1/4 inch or so.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 12, 2021 13:06:13 GMT -5
I'd say pretty darn good, You are kind of limited by the quality of the rough as far as pits of fractures go. Prairies and bubblegums make great tumble fodder. When I was tumbling I'd run my stuff like forever in rough grind and simply throw out stuff that is too pitted etc. More angles you round off the better the finished stones. If you look at commercial tumbles you'll see they really round them off before they leave coarse grind. And remember, the best final polish is created by lots of surface to surface contact. I keep a huge bottle of tiny rounded agates and along with pellets, put a lot of those in with the larger rocks in the tumble batch during pre polish and polish cycle. Those little rocks get into all the curved surfaces etc and give a much more complete polish to stones that are not completely round.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 11, 2021 17:45:40 GMT -5
*sigh* Kind of sad you younger folks weren't around to see what Crazy Lace used to look like. There used to be an old shop in Santa Barbara, CA that had a huge bin of what they call Laguna Lace now mixed with Dogtooth Lace, pseudoorphs after aragonite crystals, that would make your eyes pop out. a At Quartsite, back before it became a friggin swap meet, these two young Mexican fellows used to bring a pile of C.L. the size of a pickup truck that had every color and pattern you can think of in big unfractured hunks for $2 a pound. Some hunks were twenty or thirty pounds. I would spend hours with a squirt bottle choosing hunks within by budget. I always left Q with barely enough money to buy gas to get home *L* Man those were the good ole days! Q rocked back then with tons of guys that were real tailgaters.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 11, 2021 15:50:03 GMT -5
I'm a big fan of Prairie Agate. Hard material and sometimes the black ones and red ones have amazing patterns on the inside, even scenes. I've even seen a few with nice dots,orbs, or pigeon blood agate type inclusions. Hard to believe you can still find a bunch of those to collect. Just curious, do you ever find where Amerinds were knapping Prairies? I don't believe I've ever seen a point from that material.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 10, 2021 7:05:11 GMT -5
Sold. Thanks!
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 9, 2021 20:41:49 GMT -5
Great trip report. When I went to Goldfield, back when the trip was done on mammoth back, the prize material was something called bullseye agate which looked to be a very high in silica banded rhyolite type material in reds, whites and golds. Looks like you scored very similar stuff. Glad to see the site is still yielding good finds.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 9, 2021 20:35:41 GMT -5
OK, here's where common trade names used in marketing become kind of confusing. To me, the Mexican Flower Jasper being offered by folks like the Rockshed looks like #2 grade crazy lace agate. I may be wrong but it sees like every few years someone goes through the discard pile at the crazy lace mines and comes up with a new trade name for the reject material that is not as fancy as old stock crazy lace. However a few types of Mexican flower jasper are actually flowering or orbicular rhyolite and may or may not polish as well as agate.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 9, 2021 8:23:05 GMT -5
Man I Love this thread! Hookedonrocks: That poppy on page two is one of the most spectacular I've ever seen. Got to say if anyone asked me where that Oregonite red poppy came from I would point you to the exact pit where I dug identical material in Hunters Valley, CA. Dead ringer for the original Hornitos Jasper find right down to the habit the Hornitos has of having the patterns distorted or slighted shifted. Guess similar geology does make similar materials....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 8, 2021 19:45:27 GMT -5
Nice poppy jasper! The starburst is actually rhyolite.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 8, 2021 12:46:30 GMT -5
Very nice indeed! Love the next to last one.
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