How to collect resins?

[bigcountry]

I want to heat treat a white ash stave I have.  I have several blue spruces around my property.  I see them bleeding.  But I need collect some resin.  Is there  a way to collect a good bit of it?  I was reading the PA article on resins, and not sure I can collect enough for the tempering of limbs.

[JackCrafty]

Hmmm...I must have missed that article.  What does the resin do when tempering the limbs?

I seem to recall a video by Marc St Louis where he applies resin to the wood after heat treating.  Is that what you mean?

[bigcountry]

Hmmm...I must have missed that article.  What does the resin do when tempering the limbs?

I seem to recall a video by Marc St Louis where he applies resin to the wood after heat treating.  Is that what you mean?

Yep, he thinks it makes the limb harder while cooling, and more water resistent. 

[JackCrafty]

Here's a link:

http://www.wikihow.com/Tap-a-Pine-Tree

You can also buy pine rosin (solid) and pine tar (liquid) but they are pricey.

[ErictheViking]

That is a cool link patrick,  thanks.

[bigcountry]

I do have some trimming I need to do on several blue spuces,  I sure don't want to kill em by slashing in the side of them as these are around my property.

Maybe I can gather enough after trimming to do something.

[Elktracker]

I dont know how big or healthy the trees are you have but we get some big sitka spruce around here 6 to 7feet through, I usually get mine after the tree has been fell for a while(wind fall) and there are pockets of it in the rounds. I have also stuck an ax in the side of the tree in a few places and come back in a month or so and there is usually a good amount seeping from the cuts. This doesnt kill the tree just leaves a scar at least on the big spruce I have done it to. Just a thought

[Lee Slikkers]

Doesn't rubbing the limbs with resin make them perpetually sticky or tacky and make for applying a finish rather difficult?  Just curious, haven't read the article but I'm sure if Marc wrote it he tried it and it worked.

[dbb]

Take a look at the videoclips on heattreating .
he applies the resin on the wood directly after heating so i guess it soaks in..atleast it smokes and probably smells like a forrestfire

/Mikael

[Marc St Louis]

You can see in the vid I made that I apply the sap to the hot wood.  As the wood cools it pulls the hot and still liquid sap into itself and it is surprising how deep it gets pull in.  I have heated a limb after scraping the wood and removed all evidence of heat treating and you can still see sap oozing out from the heat.

As to collecting the resin/sap, I just go around and pick it off trees where they have been injured.  Not too hard to collect enough to do a dozen bows or more

[bigcountry]

You can see in the vid I made that I apply the sap to the hot wood.  As the wood cools it pulls the hot and still liquid sap into itself and it is surprising how deep it gets pull in.  I have heated a limb after scraping the wood and removed all evidence of heat treating and you can still see sap oozing out from the heat.

As to collecting the resin/sap, I just go around and pick it off trees where they have been injured.  Not too hard to collect enough to do a dozen bows or more

So I have watched the video, read the procedure in TBB, but I got to ask.  How in the world did you figure out this was a good thing? 

And does it affect putting a finish on?  As one poster asked, is it sticky for life?

[Marc St Louis]

I've been heat-treating bows for quite a number of years and have tried a number of different things while doing it.  The conifer sap is just something I tried one time a few years ago and I liked the results. Also I knew at the time that varnish of old was made with the sap of conifers and that it was a good sealer so I figured that it wouldn't hurt. 

When you apply the sap to the hot wood it dries it out quite well.  What remains after the wood has cooled does not affect a finish. 

[Elktracker]

I have only used this method on VM but it is not sticky after it cools and any hard surface resin flakes right off very easily with just a light scrapeing from my little experiance with useing it.