JUST CALL HIM ARROWHEAD FRED

KELSO -- Fred Bollinger knows more about arrowheads than the average person does because he is both a collector and a "flint knapper."

More than 20 years ago, he acquired the nickname "Arrowhead Fred." He does demonstrations of flint knapping the craft of making arrowheads and gives lectures about arrowheads to scout groups and schools around the area.

"I started collecting arrowheads in 1950, when I was 9 years old," he said. "We were cutting firewood and I stepped back into a groundhog hole. I looked back to see what had tripped me and found an arrowhead sticking out of the dirt.

"Pop said there were a couple more arrowheads around the house and if I wanted them and could find them, then I could have them. By the end of the week, I had three or four and I just kept on looking."

Gullies and plowed fields are where he searches for arrowheads, Bollinger said, but it gets harder all the time to find them. More and more farmers have gone to no-till methods and do not plow their fields anymore, he said.

"I think I have found two this year. I used to find at least 100 or more a day when I was a kid on certain sites. Now I'm lucky to find one or two."

Stoddard County is a good hunting ground for arrowheads, said Bollinger, who lives in Kelso. "There are some in Scott County, but they are cruder made."

They are as individualized as the Indians who made them thousands or hundreds of years ago, Bollinger said. "Someone had to make each individual one and you can never have two that are identical."

The fact that the person had to have enough skill to sit down and crack them out of an ordinary rock is the most interesting thing about arrowheads to Bollinger.

"All totaled I probably had between 8,000 and 9,000 arrowheads at one given time," he said, "but I just ran out of space to keep them."

Currently, he has close to 4,500 authentic arrowheads. "That's not many compared with some collectors," he said.

Bollinger tries to keep as many as he can, but he has more or less quit buying them in favor of making them.

"I started flint knapping out of boredom. It was hotter than a dickens that day and I had walked all over that cornfield and thought sure I'd find something, but all I had was a handful of chips.

"I was looking at one chip and decided it would make an arrowhead if I just worked at it. It took me two hours and I cut my finger with my pocket knife, but from that little chip I got an arrowhead."

An arrowhead can be made from a rock the size of a BMW or the size of a dime, Bollinger said, but several varieties of rocks can be used. He prefers chert, a fossilized clay.

Some rocks can be worked right out of the creek or field, he said, but others need to be baked because of their mineral content.

"Usually, if the rock comes from Illinois or Kentucky you don't have to bake it, but if it comes from Missouri or Arkansas, you better bake it."

Bollinger bakes the flint chips in a cast-iron bathtub. Sand is put in the bottom of the tub and flint is placed on top of that. Then more sand placed at top of the chips.

A fire is then built under the tub and also on the top layer of the sand. The fire needs to burn an hour for each inch of flint in the tub, he said.

"After the sand and rocks have cooled, I give the rock a `slurp' test to determine if it will make an arrowhead," Bollinger said. "I knock a corner off the rock and then give it a lick. If it looks slick and shiny, then it'll chip, but if it looks like sandpaper, then I get rid of it."

The flint knapper begins by cracking a piece of rock off. "You don't carve arrowheads, but you actually chip them," he said. "You take one chip off at a time.

"I started out using a rock to chip with, but I ended up wasting more points than I was making. I now use the beam of a moose antler to chip the flint. The antler doesn't break as many points this way."

He has been timed at making a point in four minutes. It resembled an arrowhead but was not perfect. "If you want it to be nice looking you should take about 10 minutes and spend a little more time on it," he said.

"But there are just some days that are just bad and you can't make a point at all, and then there are some days when you just can't make a mistake."

Bollinger has been chipping arrowheads for almost 33 years, and has made between 25,000 and 28,000.

"I have arrowheads that I have made overseas as well as scattered all over this county," Bollinger said. "People usually buy the points I make to use," he said.

"One man, after buying the points, puts shafts on them and sells them as primitive hunting kits. But the ones in England are hanging up in a pub behind the bar, as more or less a conversation piece."

There are hazards that accompany flint knapping. The worst is silicosis, a condition is similar to the black lung that afflicts coal miners. It is called white lung and, unlike black lung, will not clear up.

Once a person breathes so much of the dust, it starts to scar the lungs. Proper ventilation is necessary if someone plans on doing a lot of chipping, Bollinger said.

"You chip outside all you can because you can get where the air carries the dust away from you," he said. "A good Dustbuster also works, and it's better than nothing if you plan on chipping inside."

Cuts are also a big risk with flint knapping. If raking on a chip or pressure-flaking, you can easily cut your fingers or knuckles open, he said.

Another risk is flying flakes, especially if the flint knapper is using a hammer stone.

Bollinger tries to chip a couple hours every day after work. He keeps a running calendar on the points he makes or breaks that day.

Flint knapping is a hobby for Bollinger, but it tries to be a business. "When it gets to be a business, it's no fun," he said. "When someone orders 500 points, it takes all the fun out of it and it becomes a grind just like work."