^ Latest points made, now using blue slate instead of brown. These are incredibly thin (the middle one is less than a sixteenth inch). Probably too fragile to hunt with, but neat anyway.


^ A slate saw. The teeth on the left side were my initial effort, and the teeth on the right side were made after some hands-on experience. Over all, this saw is incredibly crude and slow. I sawed through a piece of 1"x1" pine in about two minutes. However it does leave a nice flat sawn face, unlike faster and more aggressive methods like burning or chopping. Some of the older, obsolete, teeth have been ground off to make the stone easier to hold; also the back side (bottom-left here) has been smoothed because this is where all the hand pressure is applied. I have designed this saw only to cut on the push stroke.


^ Tried to get a nicer picture of the teeth, but it didn't really come out. I found that an effective tooth pattern was to cut into the stone from alternating sides, such that the notches are sloped 45 degrees forward: / \ / \ / \ as well as 45 degrees below horizontal, so that you end up with triangular "lands" sticking up on alternate sides of the stone.


^ The saw in action. You can see by the quality of the sawdust that it is more of a focused abrasion process than any kind of slicing and chiseling action like a modern steel saw. The saw seems reasonably robust, it made 3 cuts without a noticeable decrease in cutting speed. It would be easy to maintain , as I would simply need to use my shaping tool to reiterate the existing grooves.


^ Cordage made from cattail plants. Here we have a 4-stranded flat braid and 3-stranded flat braid made from the leaves, and a 2-stranded twist "thread" made from the stem fiber. Catcord has a surprisingly high breaking strength! The two braided pieces here could probably hold 20-someodd pounds of dead weight. For best strength, use only healthy green leaves and discard all signs of rust or insect damage. Catcord has little abrasion resistance however, and will quickly be compromised by things rubbing on it.