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white flint
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Pilgrim
posted
I have heard talk of white flint. I am building my first flint and don't know much about the tools or the parts.
I was hunting today and found a strange white rock, probably what it is, and was just wondering.
Blackie
 
Posts: 81 | Location: Louisville Ky | Registered: 16 February 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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Rich Pierce out of the St. Louis area makes and sells gunflints that are white. Flint can be many colors and shades.
 
Posts: 1487 | Location: Mountain Home, Arkansas | Registered: 08 October 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Pilgrim
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Thanks for the information. What I found might be flint then.
 
Posts: 81 | Location: Louisville Ky | Registered: 16 February 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Pilgrim
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put steel to it an see if it sparks
 
Posts: 70 | Location: hanover pa  | Registered: 21 September 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Pilgrim
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Regular Joe going to do that today.
 
Posts: 81 | Location: Louisville Ky | Registered: 16 February 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
Picture of Hanshi
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Well knapped, it is roughly equal to E. black.


*Young guys should hang out with old guys; old guys know stuff.*
 
Posts: 3560 | Location: Maine (by way of Georgia then Va.) | Registered: 26 January 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of Josh Crain
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I'm never one of the lucky fellas to just run across flint here and there, so I've found miriads of other stones that work almost as well: Granite, quartz, obsidian, jasper (I don't recommend using jasper. It's kinda hard to get, and I think it also might be worth more than a piece of flint! Big Grin), etc...


"Return unto me, and I will return unto you," saith the Lord of hosts.
~Malachi 3:7b
 
Posts: 297 | Location: MI | Registered: 18 August 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Pilgrim
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Well I got a chance to strike the white rock on some steel and no sparks. Guess I got fooled. would not know a good sparker if I found one but I will learn.
 
Posts: 81 | Location: Louisville Ky | Registered: 16 February 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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quote:
Originally posted by Josh Crain:
I'm never one of the lucky fellas to just run across flint here and there, so I've found miriads of other stones that work almost as well: Granite, quartz, obsidian, jasper (I don't recommend using jasper. It's kinda hard to get, and I think it also might be worth more than a piece of flint! Big Grin), etc...


Granite? Surprised it sparks. Quartz actually can be a bit too hard for good sparks but should work if you can find the right size/shape. Jasper is excellent for gunflints. Yes, expensive. Can be purchased sawn from Gunter Stifter in Germany.
 
Posts: 1487 | Location: Mountain Home, Arkansas | Registered: 08 October 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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quote:
Originally posted by blackie:
Well I got a chance to strike the white rock on some steel and no sparks. Guess I got fooled. would not know a good sparker if I found one but I will learn.


"some steel"?
What kind? Was it a good hard fire steel? Will known flint spark with it?
 
Posts: 1487 | Location: Mountain Home, Arkansas | Registered: 08 October 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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Actually the white looking rock that we have is called chert. Similar to flint and good enough for our purposes.
 
Posts: 332 | Location: South Coast (MS) | Registered: 16 September 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Pilgrim
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Rifleman 1776 I used teo different files and neither one of them would spark with known flint so still not sure.
 
Posts: 81 | Location: Louisville Ky | Registered: 16 February 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of Notchy Bob
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We don't have a great deal of variety of stone where I live in Florida. Mostly just limerock and chert, which is generally a pale, light tan in color. I've never tired it for sparks, but it was used by the indigenous people for projectile points.

There is a very pale, white stone called Novaculite that is often used for projectile points. I don't know if this is the material used for "white flints" or not, but it may be.

Notchy Bob


"Should have kept the old ways just as much as I could, and the tradition that guarded us. Should have rode horses. Kept dogs."

from The Antelope Wife
 
Posts: 333 | Location: Florida | Registered: 24 May 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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quote:
Originally posted by Notchy Bob:
We don't have a great deal of variety of stone where I live in Florida. Mostly just limerock and chert, which is generally a pale, light tan in color. I've never tired it for sparks, but it was used by the indigenous people for projectile points.

There is a very pale, white stone called Novaculite that is often used for projectile points. I don't know if this is the material used for "white flints" or not, but it may be.

Notchy Bob


Chert is flint. Try it, you might be surprised.
Novaculite is best known as Arkansas whetstone. It is cut into gunflints and sold. Not very popular but there are claims it works very well. It comes in a variety of colors. As far as knapping qualities, I don't know. Again, try it and let us know.
 
Posts: 1487 | Location: Mountain Home, Arkansas | Registered: 08 October 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of GreyWolf
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quote:
Chert is flint

actually flint is a colored/dark version of chert..

quote:
So what is flint? By mineralogical definition, flint is simply black chert. It appears that the term "flint" was originally applied to the high quality black cherts found in England.

http://www.theaaca.com/Learning_Center/flintvs.htm

and both are a type of fine grained quartz which is a silica mineral. Several type of such fine grained quarts are included under the general term chert: jasper, chalcedony, agate, flint, porcelanite, and novaculite.

Flint is gray to black and nearly opaque (translucent brown in thin splinters) because of included carbonaceous matter. Opaque, dull, whitish to pale-brown or gray specimens are simply called chert; the light colour and opacity are caused by abundant, extremely minute inclusions of water or air. The physical properties are those of quartz.


aka Chuck Burrows
 
Posts: 616 | Location: Southern Rockies | Registered: 03 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Pilgrim
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Cert is considered an impure form of flint,about 90% quartz.
Examples of true flint are found in the chalk beds of England,Denmark and other locations in NW Europe.Nodules that are very close to the true flint can be found in the Austin Limestone deposits of central Texas

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mischief,
 
Posts: 81 | Location: N W Florida | Registered: 23 September 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Greenhorn
Picture of draken
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Rifleman1776: There is a place in Maine known either as "jasper cove" or "jasper beach" My dad showed me the place when we were touring the New England states back in 1976. The entire beach was comprised entirely of jasper pebbles.
Aside from the fact it is on the coast, I have no idea of exactly where it is, but as I remember there were two radar domes on the other side of the cove.

Maybe someone familiar with Maine knows knows where it is located.


Dick



Gun control means being able to call your shots
 
Posts: 39 | Location: Middleport, NY | Registered: 06 April 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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