Stone tools 4: Primitive stone hammer 🪨

Just a quickie while I'm working on some projects that might take a little longer: A stone hammer with a handle is a nice step up from a hand-held hammerstone in terms of handling, precision, and force. Plus it's quite simple to make.

A couple of tips from my experience so far:
- Pulling the bark off a branch is easiest in spring and summer, less so once autumn sets in.
- Willow wood splits easily, but the split often tends to wander towards one side or the other. You can steer it back towards the middle by bending the thicker half more than the thinner one.
- There are different sorts of willow and not all of them are flexible enough for this procedure. I have so far found the ones growing right next to the water to be consistently very flexible. Leaving the branch in water for a day will help, too.
- As the material dries out, the fitting around the hammer head can get a bit loose. You may then need to re-tighten the knots and the wrapping.
- It seems to be a good idea to have more than one hammer in your toolkit. Especially when used to hit other rocks, the hammer head will wear off faster than hand-held hammerstones, due to its smaller size and the higher impact forces.

Update: The head of the hammer you see me making in this video later broke in two after a couple of harder hits. The quartz head held up nicely so far.

#stonetools #primitiveskills