I made my first hand-drill drill the other day for drilling through cedar bark. It’s made from a shoot of Pacific Nine Bark, elk sinew and Dacite. Here is a photo:
My problem is… anyone here have a lot of experience making/using these? What are they good for? What stones work best? How do you get the desired shape of a particular stone?
The Dacite stone I used broke even just on the cedar bark. Is there something better for this?
I re-knapped the blade and it worked pretty well again. My main complaint with this one is that I feel the spindle should be thicker. It’s actually a really skinny one, like thinner than a pencil. I need to get a thicker spindle. I made another one at Rewild Camp the other day with a longer blade too. I need to set it in place with something better than that sinew too. Like sinew + hide glue or pitch glue. Also, I’m not that great of a knapper, so the point isn’t perfectly oval shaped, so it kind of pops a bit in the hole that it’s drilling once it gets pretty deep.
SO… my next goals are:
Looks good man.
keep it up 
I still have yet to find anything like flint or obsidian to use as a cutting tool… (I’ve been practising using bottle bottoms though)
If I remember correctly, I’ve seen write-ups and photos of people using an small unworked quartz point for the drill bit. Might try looking for one that has enough of a point naturally.