Heat Treatment

[chase]

rmartin wrote:

First off, it is evident you do not understand the process of heat treating. The material is usually buried in the ground and a controlled fire is built on top and is allowed to burn for up to a few days.  Flint is not burnt per se. Secondly, why would you want to alter an ancient artifact?

Well said Ray!  the other  factor is if not done right you will blow up the chert. into pieces. Thanks for your insight.

[sneakygroundbuzzard]

rmartin wrote:

First off, it is evident you do not understand the process of heat treating. The material is usually buried in the ground and a controlled fire is built on top and is allowed to burn for up to a few days.  Flint is not burnt per se. Secondly, why would you want to alter an ancient artifact?

  i agree,very well said
now as a modern knapper i will add
most folks these days do not bury their chert to heat treat it
most,like myself, whom only heat small amounts for themselves use electric turkey roaster with the inner pan removed and then the roaster is filled with fine sand
and other procdures that must be followed(i wont go into to much detail as i really dont want to give RJKII too much because i dont want them to ruin artifacts)
others that actually sell rock to other flintknappers use pottery kilns for heat treating,but these folks usually are doing hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of pounds a year
these ways are much more controllable than burying your rock and keeping a fire lit over it for a couple of days

[Chippintuff]

I am a flint knapper also. The only stone that I heat treat is stone that is quite difficult to chip or stone that I try to beautify so the finished product makes a nicer display. Some chert/flint gets glossy when cooked, but some does not. The same goes for color and also workability. It takes a lot of experience or some stone specific instructions to get a desirable result with the stone. If you do not know what you are doing, you will destroy the stone. When I first started trying to heat treat, I often opened the cooker to find that I had nothing but shattered stone or a million tiny chips the size of sand grains.
If any of you are thinking that cooking can improve the way your artifacts look, be aware that you will probably destroy them, and if not, you may or may not get a color change. If you do get a color change, it will be obvious that the heat was applied after chipping, because the color change is strongest on the surface and fades as it goes deeper into the rock. Also, heat treating will not add gloss to existing surfaces. if there is a gloss change, it will be seen only on scars where new flakes come off after cooking. Please do not alter any artifacts. Those are priceless and irreplaceable.
WA