cooking pitch

[paulc]

Hey All, I know this has been discussed before  but I can not find the thread...can someone direct me to a thread on how to cook pine pitch.  Or tell me how...?  TIA, Paul C

[mullet]

 Paul, the easiest way I've found to collect pine resin is to boil it. I put pieces of heart pine, lighter knot, in boiling water. As the resin floats to the top, I take a stick and just keep swirling it around in it and dipping it in cool water. It will continue to stick and build up on the stick till it looks like a big lollipop.

 When I use it I just heat it till it is sticky and dip in in ashes and use like a glue stick.

[Pat B]

Pitch is very volatile!!!  If you cook it, cook it outside. The way Eddie suggests sounds like a very safe way to cook pitch. You can do the same with lumps of hardened pitch.

[sailordad]

i take the dried or semi dried chunks of sap off the tree
put inside small can with holes in the bottom,set that on top of another can(double boiler method)
this allows the sap(once its melted)to drip into the lower can as it melts and leaves the debris that was stuck in the sap in the top can
while that is melting i grind some wood charcoal and some dried rabbit dung,grind it as fine as possible,then mix it into the melted sap
and as mentioned before,use a stick to collect it,and yes very volitale

have fun

[radius]

um, what's the rabbit dung for?

[recurve shooter]

yeah im currious to. what the heck dose ash and pre digested rabit food have to do with pitch?

[Auggie]

Poop gives it flavor. ;DJust kiddin horse 0r rabbit gives it a little fiber to help it stiffen up and be less pliable.

[recurve shooter]

well that makes sence. 

do the ashes do the same thing?

[Pat B]

When I make pitch glue I add finely ground charcoal(for body) and bees wax to make it less brittle. The dried rabbit dung(dried deer dung also) works like the charcoal by adding body to the glue. I have al;so used fine saw dust to do the same thing.

[JackCrafty]

Personally, I use wood dust instead of dung...and soot (lamp black) instead of ash.  I also add beeswax to the mix.  I might be wrong but here is my take on what each component does:

The wood dust helps to create more glue....it's easier to get wood dust than more pitch.
The ash (or soot) is for color and also adds a little volume.
Beeswax lowers the melting point which makes it easier to apply/remove.  It also helps to keep stuff from sticking to the glue when exposed to heat after it is cooled.

As far as beeswax making the pitch less brittle...I haven't noticed a difference.  The glue is quite brittle either way.  The only thing that I've noticed that helps to keep the glue from cracking is the sinew that is wrapped over the glue when hafting the point.

Pitch mixed with beeswax and osage dust.


Hammer test.



The glue is quite crumbly.

[wolfsire]

I've noticed that wax will make it less brittle, but to see that i need a piece 1/2" x 3" with a bend test.  The waxed will bend more before it breaks.  Fiber, in addition to filler, can act as rebar.  I've seen that in action too, where broken pieces of pitch are held together by strands.  I'm sure both of these make a differences in pitch ability to take stress, but whether those differences makes any difference for practical pruposes, I don't know.  I supect proper molding is even more important.

[Sleep Junkie]

I am pretty new to the primitive archery scene and the other day I made some pitch sticks or tried to.  I started out by getting out my Coleman camping stove and firing it up.  Yea, yea, I know.  Not very primitive but I figured that it would be easier for my first attempt.  There are a few reason for this.  First is that it was raining so I was able to work in the garage on the cement floor.  Second is that I can better adjust the needed heat.

Next I took out the chucks of sap that I had collected and I put it in an old tin can.  I then placed this on low heat so it could melt slowly.  From what I have read, you should try to keep it from boiling unless your sap is the soft kind and then you actually want to boil it a little bit to cook out some of the turpentine.  If it starts giving off a whitish smoke, get it off the heat because it is about to catch fire.  This is flammable stuff.  At this point it still had dirt, sticks and bugs in it, so I needed to filter it.  I bought a few of those cheap screen filters with handles that will just fit over a tin can or a coffee cup from Wal-mart.  I think they are used for making tea and they were in the housewares section.  When the sap got runny enough, I poured it through the screen into another tin can that I had on the other burner.  You will have to do this a little bit at a time if your sap was a dirty as mine.  The screen is pretty fine so it clogs easy but that is okay because it taps out easy enough if you do it while the sap is still runny.   

Now that I had my sap warm and clean I got out the ingredients.  What I used was bacon grease that had congealed into lard in the fridge and crushed up charcoal from I fire that I had burning a few days earlier.  From what I read, grill charcoal doesn't work, but I could be mistaken.  You might want to look that up if you plan on using it.  I had my charcoal crushed up and my lard ready before hand, so I tried to spoon in one part charcoal dust and one part lard for every two parts of melted sap.  There are a couple different ratios on here that I have seen listed so you will have to experiment to see what works for you because I believe it differs slightly depending on your ingredients. 

Now that you have the ingredients in there, make sure to mix it up real good.  From what I have read, I think it is supposed to be the consistency of runny peanut butter.  If that is what you have, take a sharpened stick and swirl it around and get some on there.  When you pull it out, dip it in some cold water to cool it off and harden it up some.  Then dip it again and repeat with the water.  Keep doing this until you have as much on your stick as you want and you have a pitch stick.

Now keep in mind that this was my first time and I failed miserably, so take what I have said with a grain of salt.  It seemed to work out okay, but when the pitch stick was completely dry it was still too soft and sticky.  I think I put in too much grease and on top of that, I don't think I cooked off enough turpentine.  It is a learning experience though and I feel sure that I will do better the next time around.  Good luck and I hope I have helped. 

[wolfsire]

If I read you right, you used about 25% bacon greese.  I have no idea if the salt makes a difference.  I've found that oil and wax work better about about 5%, give or take.  You can remelt and add more sap and charcoal and it should be fine.  Runny sap does not need to be boiled to burn off the volitiles, though that would speed it up at the risk of ruining it by turning it grainy and non-tacky.  A little boil is ok though.

[Sleep Junkie]

Yea, you are right about the 25% bacon grease.  I tried to mix it 50% pitch, 25% charcoal and 25% bacon grease/lard. 

When you said, "I've found that oil and wax work better about about 5%, give or take.", do you mean that I should use oil and wax instead of charcoal and grease or did you mean that I should only replace the grease with wax and oil?  On top of that, what kind of oil do you use and if I am only replacing the grease what is the mixture of wax and oil to one another?  Should it be a wax and oil mixture of 50/50 and then added as only 5% oil/wax to 95% pine sap?  I really hope I don't have to cut out the charcoal.  I really liked the deep black color that it ends up!  Ahhh well.  Hit me up and let me know cause I am thoroughly confused now. LOL 

[recurve shooter]

i may be wrong here, but i think that the grease/oil/wax are all interchangeable. i think he meant that the persentage of whichever of those substances you choose should be droped down to around 5 percent. im not sure about the charcoal