how to mix pine pitch

[Fred Arnold]

Pat, I know most of these recipes are by feel or touch but do you have a ratio close to how much beeswax you are adding. I'm getting ready to try my own first batch and would like just a general idea to begin with.
Fred

[Pat B]

Fred, I don't have a specific recipe but I'd guess it to be about 1 part charcoal and 1 part bees wax to 3 or 4 parts of pitch. You have to be very careful heating pitch because if it gets too hot it WILL combust. I usually make it up using my wood stove to cook it. I melt the pitch and clean out the debris as best I can then add the bees wax and mix it in. I them add the charcoal to thicken it up. I'll remove it from the wood stove and let it cool and check the consistancy. If not right I reheat the mix and add whatever I think it needs.
 A double boiler is a lot safer method(but slower) of cooking the pitch and I know guys that boil the pitch in water to melt it and to seperate the debris from it. I have done this once and it seemed to work pretty well.

[stringstretcher]

Pat, I have a lot of the soft sticky sap here.  When you heat it up to get the turp out, when do you know it is out?  Is there a way to tell when heating it up?

[Pat B]

Charlie, I use trial and error. I'll cook it until it gets pretty hot then take it off the heat and let it cool and test it. Generally a few sessions like this will do the trick, depending on how much turps are in the pitch.

[stringstretcher]

Thanks Pat.  I had an idea the other night, not sure if it will work or not.  I have one of the older bottom pour lead melting pots that I was going to try and use.  As it melted I could lift the handle and let the good pitch run out the bottom into something, leaving all the debris  in the pot.  Have to see if it will get too hot, as lead melts at a pretty high temperature.

[crooketarrow]

  PATS right you just have to play with it.
  I tell you what you can do thats if you have trouble getting it right. Cheat and add a hot glue stick or 2 and melt it in lots of people do this and keep it to themselves. But if done right it's better than the hot glue you buy.

[iowabow]

Ok i dont use hardwood and this is why. Willow charcoal like coconut has the greatest surface area as a particle. These particles also have areas that can bite and hold onto other chemicals better because of the greater surface area. This wood can be ground into a finer powder. The addition of other materials benifit as well from these properties. Willow charcoal was used during WW1 in gas mask because of the larger surface area of the particles. My belief is the surface area benifets adhesion....I could be wrong...only time will tell...

[turtle]

Ok i dont use hardwood and this is why. Willow charcoal like coconut has the greatest surface area as a particle. These particles also have areas that can bite and hold onto other chemicals better because of the greater surface area. This wood can be ground into a finer powder. The addition of other materials benifit as well from these properties. Willow charcoal was used during WW1 in gas mask because of the larger surface area of the particles. My belief is the surface area benifets adhesion....I could be wrong...only time will tell...

I just made a batch of pitch glue a few days ago with willow charcoal i happened to have left over from making a batch of blackpowder. I knew willow was supposed to be best for blackpowder but didnt know it had greater sutface area. It seems to work well in the pitch glue, but since this is my first batch i dont have anything to compare it with.

[iowabow]

Ok i dont use hardwood and this is why. Willow charcoal like coconut has the greatest surface area as a particle. These particles also have areas that can bite and hold onto other chemicals better because of the greater surface area. This wood can be ground into a finer powder. The addition of other materials benifit as well from these properties. Willow charcoal was used during WW1 in gas mask because of the larger surface area of the particles. My belief is the surface area benifets adhesion....I could be wrong...only time will tell...

I just made a batch of pitch glue a few days ago with willow charcoal i happened to have left over from making a batch of blackpowder. I knew willow was supposed to be best for blackpowder but didnt know it had greater sutface area. It seems to work well in the pitch glue, but since this is my first batch i dont have anything to compare it with.

I just read it like a year ago. I used oak because I thought it would be stronger but found the data interesting and switched. The article was about the different qualities of charcoal. I now think about the finer quaility of flax compared to other larger fibers that are less strong.

[Mike_H]

Just thought I'd chime in here.  I've been trying to find a good formula for making good arrow pitch and what some others have said seems to be right.  Fresh pitch, hardwood charcoal and ground plant fiber, either poop or just really dry stuff.

I made a batch last night using those three ingredients just adding a littl at a time until I got the consistency Billy Berger said yo should have in his article in PA.

[iowabow]

I think we should myth bust this one. Willow vs oak. Now we need to agree on what we are testing: compression? tension? flexibility? I bet that one formula works great in cold but not warm maybe... just thinking here. There are so many different ways to think about this so the test will have to be limited to simple variables. OK lets design a test any ideas?