Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Primitive Skills => Topic started by: Pappy on August 11, 2010, 01:13:04 pm
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I gathered some pitch while at a shoot in MI. last week.The last I tried turned out[well not to good] I know it is on here somewhere but I can seem to find it.Has someone got a good recipe for making it up.I know it needs some kind of filler and I think some even put in some amount of bees wax. Just need a thought on how much to use ,how hot to get it and how much to use by volume of pitch.The last I made was very brittle. :)
Pappy
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Hi Pappy,
I made some about a year ago, and it turned out fine, actually, it's still sticky and working fine if rolled a bit or slightly heated.
I did 5:1:1
Pitch to filler to fat. When I made mine I simply used super ground wood char and Crisco.
Good Luck,
Parnell
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Pappy, If you start out with hard pitch you can melt it down, remove the trash and add bees wax and finely ground charcoal. The charcoal in the fire pit will work fine. ;) I'm not sure of the ratios but it is mostly pitch. Maybe 2 parts pitch, one part each charcoal and bees wax. You'll just have to play with it.
If the pitch is sticky or runny you will have to cook out the turps first or it won't harden. Be careful when you cook it because it is quite volatile and will ignite if you get it too hot.
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i do like Pat does
melt the pitch down,boil out the turpentine if its fresh pitch
i add ground up rabbit poop and wood charcoal as a filler and i like to add beeswax
i play with the amounts untill i get the consistancy i want
i love making pitch,the smell is the bees knees ;D
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Thanks guys ,this is fresh,I will give it a try this weekend if I get the chance. :)
Pappy
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One more question,do you just heat it on low heat,kind of let it simmer,or bring it up to a boil ???
Pappy
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I think I went with a 2-1 ratio on my last batch. It will boil if left alone Pappy, you need to babysit the stuff.I use a small ss bowl and remove it from the heat as needed.
Also I made some small molds out of 1/2" pvc pipe by ripping them down the middle,giving them a light coat of oil, then poured my mix in them and let them set.Then I just gave them a twist,like and ice cube tray, and popped out my lil glue sticks. Worked great.
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2 pitch 1 filler,did you use bees wax. ???
Pappy
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Pappy- If you boil it to hard, it will get brittle.
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Thats what I thought. Thanks. :)
pappy
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I'm going to visit ya this weekend Pappy and want to see how you do this. I'll stand at a good distance however. :)
I always wanted to learn how to make this stuff!
Oh yeah and I got you a new knife I made out of that Saw Mill blade Greg gave me.
John
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just trying my hand at making some pitch today for the first time, harvested sap from a few pines near the girlfriends parents, made some charcoal from hickory sawdust, still trying to figure out what else to use as filler though. i read somewhere sawdust will work, im guessing the finer the better. one question though, ive left my sap sit on a warmer for awhile, trying to evaporate out the turpentines as you guys said here. when its cooled a little the surface isnt very sticky, you have to press into it to get anything sticky. does this seem like its been boiled off enough?also a lil tip i found that cheapo candle warmers are just about the right temp for this, it will simmer it a little if you stir a lot but wont make it smoke off.
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Pappy, I tried the bees wax once, but didn't really see the need. What I make may be a bit brittle for most,but it's really just there to help set the point/adjust for straightness, and fill the voids.A good sinew wrap does most of the work. ;)
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Pappy, you want the pitch to get hard and brittle after cooking. If you don't it will stay tacky. The bees wax will make it less brittle and the charcoal(dried deer or rabbit poop) adds body.
I usually cook mine in the winter in a can on the wood stove. Like Timo said it will boil so you have to keep an eye on it and remove it from the heat if it gets too hot. It will ignite if it gets too hot.
I don't know how long to cook the raw pitch but cook it for a while then let it cool. If it is hard when cool then it is ready to mix the other ingredients. If not heat it again and let it cook for a while then let it cool and check. This is why I like to find and use hard pitch that the turps have already evaporated.
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This may be in between,I got it off of some big pines that the limbs had been cut last year,it was hard enough to pack into a ball but still pretty sticky but not runny. :) I'll give it a try and see what happens. I have a ball about the size of my fist. :)
Pappy
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just a quick question, if one doesnt have beeswax would they be able to supplement fibres from a plant which has a naturally occuring wax, such as say the needles off of a shrub? i ask because our shrub when trimmed the needles still retain much of their waxy nature and will not crumble easily.
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Does it have to be pine pitch or can you use Spruce or Fir pitch
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I would this so.Jesse puts fiber in his anyway.I got mine done.It didn't make as much as I thought it would.By the time I cooked it off and cleaned and strained it.But made enough to last a while.I used bees wax and char-co from a piece of burnt Hickory ground up fine.Turned out pretty good.
Jesse use some to mount a couple of napped blades. Held them great. Now I need to find some more. :) agd68 you must have been posting while I was.I am not sure on that,I am sure someone will know,I was thinking the same thing,I fine a lot on wild cherry trees,it's sticky but not sure how it would work. :)
Pappy
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pappy a great way to test your pitch is to put some on a piece of paper. when it cools bend the paper a bit and if it cracks its too brittle, if its tacky its too much fat, ya want somewhere in the middle. peace
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I believe any conifer pitch will work. I'm not sure about fruit tree pitch. I know you can make varnish with the fruit tree pitch. I have a plum that is oozing and was gonna see what I could make from it.
For varnish dissolve the pitch(fruit or conifer) in alcohol, strain out the impurities and store in an air tight jar. Again, the more brittle the raw pitch the better.
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Pat, those sap chunks look familiar. Is that the pinyon sap?
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Nope! I think that is plain old Tennessee jack pine. ;D The pinion pine sap you sent me does make very good glue and varnish. It has a darker amber color too.
..and smells real good! ;D
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if the pitch is still tacky at room temperature does it need more cooking? the batch i just made will harden pretty well but wants to stick to surfaces i set the sticks on
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When done and cooled the pitch should be hard and brittle, not tacky at all. If you make glue or varnish with the tacky stuff the finished product will also be tacky. It will eventually harden up naturally but that could take a while.
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Pat knows his stuff on pine pitch, so I can't add much here.
I will say that adding beeswax lowers the melting temperature. That's important around here where temperatures inside a car can reach well over 150 degrees. I've had pitch/beeswax glue melt and run off completely from arrows left in my car. I don't know the exact temperature when beeswax will melt, but it's much lower than pitch.
Consequently, I use very little beeswax now. I need to experiment with fat or tallow, like Jamie mentioned. My pitch glue is brittle.
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OK, I looked it up. ;D
Pine rosin usually melts at around 165 degrees with a flash point of 400 degrees. Beeswax melts at about 145 degrees.
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If your pitch is brittle then it needs more fat or beeswax or it will break off from whatever you put it on over time. I use about 50% ~ 60% resin, 30% ~ 40% beeswax and the rest charcoal, depending on how dark I want the pitch. The fat or beeswax not only makes the pitch flexible it also helps it to stick and stay stuck
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Ya the first I made was brittle and broke off the first time I shot an arrow,I used about what you said Marc and it seem to work very good.I used bees wax,may try the deer tallow on the next batch.I just have trouble finding the pitch to start with in enough to do much with. Got loads of pines on my farm and 50 or 60 around my house,I just need to figure out how to make them
bleed >:D .I was thinking I would trim some big limbs in the spring when the sap is really rising might be the best time,what do yall think about that ???
Pappy
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Pappy,
If you hit it with an ax in the spring a couple of times, it will bleed pitch pretty good all summer....or you can just cut back some limbs.
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A good source of almost pure sap is the cones. They are covered in pure, clean sap, I've just got to figure out an easy way of getting it off. I figure filling a big pot with a bunch of them, putting a lid on and just heating them up will do it but it will still be messy and you can kiss the pot goodbye for cooking after
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A good source of almost pure sap is the cones. They are covered in pure, clean sap, I've just got to figure out an easy way of getting it off. I figure filling a big pot with a bunch of them, putting a lid on and just heating them up will do it but it will still be messy and you can kiss the pot goodbye for cooking after
use a large metal coffe can
i always use large metal soup cans when i make it,but my pitch is almost clean.very little debris in it.
i find rows of pines in the ditches where the county has cut them back in the spring,and go collect it during the summer.
big juicy globuals of pine sap ;D just waiting to be taken and melted down.
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use a large metal coffe can
i always use large metal soup cans when i make it,but my pitch is almost clean.very little debris in it.
i find rows of pines in the ditches where the county has cut them back in the spring,and go collect it during the summer.
big juicy globuals of pine sap ;D just waiting to be taken and melted down.
I use a large coffee can to melting sap collected off trees for cleaning but they are way too small for getting it off the cones. You need something really big as the Pine cones are quite large and it wouldn't be worthwhile doing them in small batches
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I take pieces of pine wood and heart pine and boil it in a large can. Then I take a stick and twirl it in the sap that floats to the top until I have a big ball of sap on a stick.
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I take pieces of pine wood and heart pine and boil it in a large can. Then I take a stick and twirl it in the sap that floats to the top until I have a big ball of sap on a stick.
Good idea
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LOL...Mullet, I ask about doing that about a year ago, and everyone thought i was crazy.....lol. Does it give you a fair amount of sap for the effort? I would love to see the results the next time you boil some out. Thanks
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Wayne, with a piece of Fat Lighter split up it takes no time at all to get a nice size ball.
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I think boiling the pine cones is a good way to separate the pitch. It will self separate from the water.
Steve parker talked about a pitch separater(from stumps I think) that the mountain folks used. Basically it was a large cast iron pot on a fire(or in the coals) and covered so air(oxygen) doesn't get in and allow it to burn. I think the intense heat drives the pitch out of the wood.
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Are we talking about pine cones when they are green or after they fall ?
Pappy
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After they fall. They are just coated with sap. The winged seeds would be a pain boiling in water though
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Like I said, I just boil Heart pine, Lighter knot, Fat pine, whatever you want to call it, split up and the sap piles up on the surface. Real simple and easy.
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We used to find fat lighter "fagots" laying around the woods at our hunt club near Bluffton, SC. We also had the skeletons of big, long leaf yellow pines that were still standing. You could cut a slab from a log an inch thick, hold it towards the sun and see light through it. I has a slab that was almost 4' in diameter and 8" to 10" thick as a table top in my yard down there. Splinter a little off whenever you needed to start a fire. JW, this is the stuff I've mentioned to you. I never tried boiling it.
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Pat, A buddy of mine down here has made two bows from fence post that were all heart pine. You could hold them up to the sun and see amber light also.
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Anyone ever used coffee grounds as a filler?
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It would probably work fine Jeff. You want them very dry before you add them to hot pitch! :o
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Well now yall have me planning to go collect some sap now. I have plenty of sources since I cut a few small pines down during the fall and trimmed some limbs. Plus it should be hard and all the turps evaporated out. Got the beeswax also.
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after I talked to halfeye, I mixed my pitch with some toilet bowl wax ring, it's great for my boots, and my 3d arrows pull real easy thanks Rich !! JEFFW
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I have made very little pine pitch, but some of the posts have gotten me thinking....oops
I lived in south Florida for a while and I was told that "fat lighter" or "pine lighter" or what ever you want to call it, is taken from dead pines that STAND in swamp water. The pine sap will collect in the base below water and it will be concentrated making a "lighter wood" that will burn when taken directly out of the swamp. The water contains the pine sap in the tree base. It is very yellow and has an incredibly strong pine scent and is the best fire starter you can find.
The other part is I now live in North Carolina where the "Tar Heels" are part of history, it is my understanding that "tar" is made from the abundant pine trees in this state. I have read somewhere that the pine logs were placed inside a metal container, maybe an upside down metal trash can for example and a fire built all around it creating intense heat inside. The heat would drive the hot sap out of the wood and would be collected below. Searching the process for making pine tar may be a process usable for making pine pitch in larger quantities.
So if a man could get real fat lighter from a swamp area and use the pine tar method of extracting the sap, I would suspect he would have some fine pine pitch.
I wonder if native Indians using clay earthen pots turned upside down as a heat chamber ever extracted sap from pine wood?
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The "fat lighter" or "fat wood" that we were familiar with growing up in Savannah was from standing deat long leaf yellow pines or the stumps from felled long leaf yellow pine. It occurs in many pines in the heart of the trunks and limbs after the tree dies and the resins concentrate there.
My best source of pitch is finding wounded pine trees(naturally and man made) and collecting the hardened pitch globs attached to these trees or near theit trunk.
Steve Parker(Hillbilly) described the method of cooking out the pitch from fat wood in metal ovens a few years ago. Apparently it was common in the Southern Appalachians too.
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Here is a little I gathered yesterday.
(http://i1182.photobucket.com/albums/x460/beetle_bailey1977/pineresin.jpg)
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this youtube video was interesting; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5I3_4UAi0I
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Pappy I have kinda a dumb question??? Is there an easy way or whatis the bestway in collecting the pitch? Do u scar a branch so itleaks out? Itis freezing here in NY maybe if I climb a tree I can find itfroze in a clump? There are tons of pine here butI dontsee a whole lotof pitch on some of them. Hmmm i'll have to take a closerlook I guess!
Thanks
Russ
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"...And now we will, uh, go look for some poop! Some deer poop ..." :D
Interesting video. Good sense of humor.
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I get it mostly from trees that had the limbs trimmed off at the trunk.I have tried scaring some trees but didn't get much from that. :)
Pappy
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I find trees that logging equipment has damaged or road side cutting tractors have damaged. And trees that on my place that I have trimmed or cut limbs off of.
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Would the runny sap out of a pine serve the same purpose after it's cooked? It's fairly easy to obtain and I got about ten million pines around me.
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Ronnie, as long as you cook the terps from the pitch it will work for glue and varnish. If you don't cook it until it is hard and brittle the glue or varnish will come out sticky. Be careful cooking it though. Pine pitch is very volatile and WILL combust if overheated.
You do live in the piney woods og GA don't cha!
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You betcha around here an enterpreising land owner will work terpentine from the trees to make extra money comonly called tarheeling in you're neck of the woods.
Ron
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Making them cat faces! ;D I'm originally a cracker too! ;)
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That's it exactly. Ive seen them load a 3/4 ton pickup to the breaking point with barrels full of the stuff.
Ron
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I remember as a kid going down Hwy 17 near Brunswick where the Hercules Plant was, there was a pile of catfaces that had been pulled from the ground that was 100' high. I think they made gunpowder from it. I remember the piney smell riding down Hwy 17 on a steamy summer day.
I used to have a few terra cotta pitch pots that were used to catch the pitch as it came from the catfaces.
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I called on a Hercules plant that shut down because that technology has changed. They now have more efficient ways to process the roots.