UTAH VALLEY KNAPPING ASSOCIATION, est 2005

 

 

May 2007

We had a great knap-in this past weekend. Lots of knappers from all of the surrounding areas came out for some of the best knapping weather anyone could ask for. We had Mike Tylzinski down from northern Idaho with a truckload of some nice knapping rock. Heat-treated and ready to sale. Mike supplied the entirety of the knap-in with rock. He was stopping by for 2 days on his way back east to the big midwest knap-ins. Greg Nunn from Castle valley Utah also stopped by for the second year ina row and showed off some of his abo style knapping skills. After 3 hours of hard work with a hammer stone and a piece of primo danish flint, he had an exquisite bipointed blade that he graciously donated to the club collection.
Prior to the knap-in, Larry and I visited the Utah obsidian quarry and picked up a few buckets of obsidian and spent a few hours spalling down some big pieces we didn’t want to take back to the truck. We now have a good supply of percussion rock for the summer. Overall, the weekend was a success. We had a few new members show up and get some good lessons from Greg and Mike. Can't wait to do it again next year. To all of those who made it, thanks for coming out to support us and we look forward to seeing you back next year. To all of those who did not make it out, you sure missed out on one of the best chances you'll ever get in Utah to have 2 world class knappers at your disposal for info and help. Don't forget that our next knap-in will be at my camp in Black Smiths Fork Canyon, east of Logan at the Memorial Day weekend rendezvous. For further info, just give a call..... Talk to ya later.. Bo

4-4-07
Hello again everyone. This past weeks knap-in at Cabela's was a huge success. We had well over 20 knappers there and loads of public who stopped by to see what the heck we were doing. The weather was good and lots of cool points were turned out. Its about time the cold weather exited and some of those warm weather knappers finally came out of the wood works. I want to remind everyone to take note of the many knap-ins planned for the next few months. I also want to remind everyone that the website is getting better everyday with lots of new cool info and pics. Hope to see every one at the next knap-in. C-ya...

3-17-06
Wow, how the time goes by. Seems like just yesterday, we were getting together, just 10 or so of us and knapping away every once in a while. Now it has been over 2 years and we just keep on getting bigger and better. For updating purposes, I would like to let everyone know that we are now a fully accepted UVSC club. Over the past year I have gone through the step of getting this official and we are now seeing the benefits of this status. By the end of May, we will have earned over $500 from UVSC in our account. I plan to use this money to buy some teaching aids (video, cast, posters, etc...) And also make some T-shirts for the club by mid-summer. I also have good news to report to you about our club collection of points from our first 2 years. It is now on display at the Hutchings Museum in Lehi and will be for some time to come. It is nice to know that the many museum visitors will now see our beautiful knapping art and possibly become interested in finding out more about the club. If you haven’t checked out the web-site lately, please do so. Kathy & Rich Tower are now helping us out with it and it looks better and better everyday. The store is up and running in an effort to help the web-sit pay for itself and the gallery is well on its way to becoming a magnificent display of what the knappers in our club can do. More importantly, we have tons of knap-ins scheduled for the upcoming months. Between now and July, there are 8-10 events alone. The member page is now overflowing with close to 65 members and that number grows with each new knap-in we host. I guess to sum it up, things are going well and I look forward to another great year of break-in rock. Have a good one.

6-01-06
Now that the UVKA is over 1 year old, I think it is time to highlight our accomplishments. We have sponsored close to 20 knapp-in's which has increased our number of members threefold. Our knapp-in collection of points for 2005 (over 80 pieces of flint knapped art) was donated in January to the Hutchings Museum and will soon be going on long term display. We Currently have almost that many and the year is only half way over. We recently had our largest knapp-in to date; a 3-day shin-dig at Freemont Indian State Park in Central Utah. It was a success in every way. World class flintknapper Greg Nunn, in my opinion the best knapper in Utah, joined us for a day and showed off some work that created many ooh's and aah's. We look forward to the next fun year of many more knapp-in's. Please take some time to check out our web site and all it has to offer. We sure would love to hear from ya...

9-01-05
Welcome to the official web site of " The Utah Valley Knapping Association". The UVKA was founded in February of 2005. The UVKA is the brain child of Bo Earls, an Adjunct Faculty / Director of Intramurals & Extramurals at Utah Valley State College in Orem, Utah. Bo picked up knapping as a hobby 4 years ago and instantly became addicted. After spending 2 years learning every possible wrong way to knapp, he finally began getting pointers from experienced knapper's. Two years, 20 books, & 3 tons of rocks later, Bo decided to share his experience with anyone who would listen. The first ever UVKA Knapp-In took place on February 10th, 2005. Since that time, many other gatherings and knapp-in's have taken place all over Utah.