Junkyard flintnapping: arrowheads made from old glass and porcelain

boing
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Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/08/17/junkyard-flintnapping-arrowhe.html
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wasn’t there a SF novel with a similar approach? instead of doing all the hard work of finding ore and melting metal they used the abundant coins for creating arrowheads in a post-civilisation US

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Definitely have read about silver dollars being melted down to make silver bullets. Was that in ‘the lost boys’?

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nah, all Wikipedia proposals are not what I (barely) remember. using other search terms I think it could be Earth Abides, but I read a shortened (iirc) German translation decades ago.

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I thought immediately of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.
spoiler alert - The (mostly) bad guy knaps glass.

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I liked him

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Ideally, flintknapping is a skill one should pick up before the zombie apocalypse. Afterwards there won’t be enough time due to the sheer volume of promos you have to film.

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Considering they have been making arrow heads and other blades from obsidian for years… yawn. And obsidian is definitely more metal as it is so black. Though old glass is probably easier to find in most areas.

Would an old church window give the user a bonus vs undead?

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Good idea. It pays to be diplomatic when dealing with a nuclear power.

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Well yeah, but he had such poor impulse control.

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You see glass arrowheads from the colonial period, too. Usually made from those thick green wine bottle bases. Flintknapping is lots of fun, but be careful if you are starting it as a hobby. In addition to the obvious hazard of flying glass, there is a very real risk of permanently damaging your lungs. http://www.pugetsoundknappers.com/interesting_stuff/knapping_silicosis_article.html

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I switched to using obsidian tools exclusively, after I realized that I’m too sexy for my chert.

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That rug really brought the planet together.

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After the Europeans arrived, Australian aborigines adopted glass and ceramic to make spear points and other tools. This was a problem for the early telegraph companies, since the ceramic insulators were ideal for the purpose.

http://australianmuseum.net.au/collection-stories-from-stone-to-glass

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Just plain “knapping” is OK too, if you’re using materials other than flint - or even if you are.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=knapping%2Cflintknapping&year_start=1800&year_end=2010&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cknapping%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cflintknapping%3B%2Cc0

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The fact you made a geology pun means I like you.

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Earth abides

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Ever heard of “johnny-stone”? or “john stone”? “throne stone”? “thunder chert”? “crapper-ite”?

It’s what flint knappers who can’t get access to chert or flint use when they want to practice:

http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php?topic=55794.0

http://www.paleoplanet.net/ has a forum a bit hard to link to… but it’s called “Johnstone/Slab Knapping Tutorial (1,2,3)”

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thanks, I came to the same conclusion nearly at the same time : )

I even think I can remember the appearance of the book (part of a series of cheap SF novel reprints) but could not find it yesterday in my mess (see the bookshelf thread somewhere here).

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