Hey, all these points I made in about 4-6 hours today, I made up some antler billets and used them for the first time, they are amazing!  They work way better than stone and copper in my opinion, and I was able to get some I think half decent bi-faces out of this tough, fractured and chalky inclusioned black english and brown french ballast flint.  The big ones are almost abo as I used a mild steel pressure flaker to even up the shape and touch up the edges and for the notching but didn't do any of the major shaping with it.   First time using antler and I LIKE IT!  The big ones will likely all end up knives and the small ones necklaces.
          The smaller points are made from the black flint, amber beachglass and what I think to be mudstone?  The rock I.D. I needed was on the two brownish/red points, it is a local stone I find on the beaches here, has no cortex just a polished exterior, some pieces are brick red, some more brown, it also can be so sedimentary layered that it is practically unknappable, (flakes one way not the other...) and other pieces are not like the piece I made these two out of.  It doesn't ever seem to want to yield long pressure flakes, so the points always end up chunky from it, it is still better for working than the abundant quartz here though and I have seen many artifacts on display made from it.  I think it may be mudstone as that is supposed to be around here in N.B. Canada but I'm not sure, if you need more pics of a chunk of it to tell just ask.










     

Luke, you're getting better and better.
Me and 2 friends find 3 ancient bifaces last Saturday and your ones looks pretty similar to them!
Go on and keep sharing your pictures!
Thanks,
Mauro.

  I tried using a tine for pressure flaking but found it just wasn't producing long enough flakes for me, and I didn't want to destroy my pieces.  I will practice with it on some less quality pieces and see if I can get the hang of it.
  I have tried heat treating the black flint but find if I do it actually will become chalky rather than improve, the brown flint goes white with peach highlights and does improve somewhat but becomes more brittle.  Perhaps I am overheating the black flint though.

Very nice work.

Usually, you preform it, build a fire to dry the soil, let the fire burn out, bury the preforms one inch (2.5cm) to 4 inches (10cm), rebuild the fire of green wood, let it burn down to coals, then let the coals burn out, wait 48 hours for the preforms to cool, dig them up and knap.  The secret is how deep to bury the type of stone and how hot to get the fire.  Learning those two will cost a lot of wood and you will blow up lots of rocks.  Ask me how I know that one.  You can also cook pottery at the same time and mix some pot shards in with your rock fragments.