How to Carve Arrowheads

Learning to carve your own arrowheads remains an essential wilderness survival skill. Ancient hunter-gatherer civilizations used the carving technique to create tools and hunting implements. According to Wilderness College, the best rocks to use when carving an arrowhead include flint, obsidian, chert and jasper. Each of these stone varieties features a fine-grained composition with a uniform texture. Percussion and pressure flaking refer to shaping techniques used in the arrowhead-making process. Use a hard piece of bone or deer antler to aid in the shaping process.

Things You'll Need

  • Safety goggles
  • Gloves
  • Bone or deer antler
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Instructions

    • 1

      Fasten a pair of safety goggles over your eyes to protect against flying pieces of debris. Put on a pair of gloves to protect your hands from the sharp edges of the stones. Utilize a ventilated area to avoid breathing in the dust created during the carving process.

    • 2

      Locate the piece of parent material, or large rock, that you plan to use for the carving process. Place the parent material on a flat surface. Shatter the parent material using the edge of a piece of bone or deer antler. Choose a smaller piece of the rock to begin the carving process.

    • 3

      Lower the piece of fragmented rock onto a flat surface. Hold the rock in place with the thumb of your non-dominant hand. Strike around the edges of the rock with the deer antler or piece of bone. Repeat the percussion flaking process until the stone attains a cone shape.

    • 4

      Place the sharpened tip of your antler or bone onto the center of the fragmented rock. Push the antler or bone in an outward direction to remove the weak pieces from the stone. Repeat the pressure flaking process around the entire stone until it attains a sharpened point and edges.

    • 5

      Locate the base of your newly carved arrowhead. Place the sharpened tip of your carving tool onto the left side of the arrowhead. Apply downward pressure to create a notch just above the base. Create a similar notch on the right side of the arrowhead to complete the carving process.