O.K. well I finally got around to it! The market was saturday and I sold 5 arrowhead necklaces and 1 medicine pouch, so all in all it was good. This afternoon I ground this up using a slab of sandstone and some water. I think it is called chocolate slate, I found it on the beach on the mainland, (lots of it,) and it grinds down really fast, took about an hour to go from a rectangle to that. I incised the patterns on the blade using a flake of flint. To haft it I used a cement drill, (I don't have a flint pumpdrill or that would have done a good job too,) and drilled two holes through the handle and the blade, then hammered in 2 wooden pegs with a little wood glue on them, it holds completely firm, no wiggle at all. The blades I saw in pictures on the internet all had holes drilled in the bases, so I assumed that's the proper hafting technique. The handle is white birch, with a hemp cord wrapping. The great news is that at the market I was talking with a woman who's husband has a piece of land they are living on now where there is an old slate quarry, she says it is black slate and there are slabs lying around over 8ft. long, she said she would talk to her husband about it and maybe I could come up and get some! I would really love that as all I can find on the beach on the mainland is either the chocolate slate or the green stuff, I would love the traditional black stuff like they use for chalkboards!

Well that's all the good news, now here's the bad news. Look closely at the edge of the blade in the pics... you'll notice it is kind of pitted and serrated looking in places...that's because whenever I grind it down on the sandstone slab to a remotely sharp edge it begins to flake away like that... I have it sharp enough now to cut carrots but not sharp enough to cut jute twine or leather, and I saw a video on youtube where a guy cut cattail cordage and leather with his, so it must not be quite up to snuff... So any ideas as to why it might be doing that and how I could fix it would be great! Is it the type of slate? I saw an authentic one on the internet made from chocolate slate, so I don't think that's it? Or is the the angle I am sharpening it at, should it be steeper? Any help would be great!

Thanks for looking!

  Wow, I guess you know a bit about rocks!  I think I need to clarify though, I didn't mean that I made a knife out of sandstone, I actually took the slate and ground it against a piece of sandstone to shape it and sharpen it.  You wet the sandstone to eliminate dust and it works very well for grinding. 
  Thanks for the info!  I have made many arrowheads from quartz by knapping, not grinding.  This is my first foray into ground stone points so that's why I'm having the trouble I'm having, I do a lot of knapping of glass and stone though and sell them as necklaces at a local market.

Hey, well I think I've solved the problem.  That chocolate slate I was using was TOO SOFT!  I just dug through the slate I collected and found I had one piece of dark grey slate, it was kind of triangular so with a little effort to shape it I made a half decent ulu out of it this afternoon, expecting it to not get an edge just like the chocolate slate.  For that reason I didn't put too much muscle into making it perfect as it was a test and not the perfect piece of slate to start with... well it holds a sharp edge, about like I have heard described and I was able to easily cut a medium sized apple in two, it even gashed the yellow birch cutting board underneath.  I whipped up the handle out of some spruce just so that I could try it out this afternoon, I may make a better handle later as this one is really just a rush job, so is the blade I guess, though it is very functional. 

  Ulu from the side:


  Ulu blade edge:


  Ulu handle from the top showing socket, I should have fit it better, but it holds with little wobble and works well:



  Thanks for the polishing tip, There is clay on the beach, I'm not sure what is meant by silt clay though, the stuff I have is light brown or black and suitable for pottery.

  Some of you might also be interested in this link to some pics and info of authentic slate knives:
http://www.alaskanartifacts.com/Slate_Knives/Ak_Slate_Knives.html

  Ahhhhhh that could be it!  It looks exactly like the same material of the 5th. knife down on the link here,
http://www.alaskanartifacts.com/Slate_Knives/Ak_Slate_Knives.html but perhaps that is because it is shale that could form chocolate slate then...  It sure looks like that same material though, but your probably right.

  Again to clarify, I know that its red sandstone, the sandstone is not what I made the knife out of.  I used the sandstone to grind the slate or shale into shape...  I will try and get a pic of the slate in raw form so you can see clearly what it is like before ground to shape.

  No problem man, I did carve a head out of sandstone though using a diamond dremel bit, but it is the last time I will.  By the time I was done the diamonds were completely worn off and the bit was cone shaped!!  Completely wrecked the bit, I haven't done any carving of stone with a dremel before so I had no idea that the abrasiveness of the sandstone would do that to a diamond bit... I'll post a pic of that as well when I get one of the slate.

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