Pine Pitch for Arrowheads

 

Pine pitch can be collected from trees that have been damaged by animals, storms, broken limbs, or even pine knots that drain naturally.

One of pitch's more common primitive uses is to mount arrowheads to an

arrow. Pine sap has been used in other primitive ways as well, such as waterproofing as the resin is insoluble in water. Pine pitch in its raw form is hard to manipulate, and thus has to be melted down into a liquid to be able to use it effectively.

One way to make the resin more manageable is to catch the pine pitch in a metal can such as a soup can or a metal camping dish that can be heated. Whichever you use, it has to have draining holes in it about the size of a nail. The holes have to be high enough along the side to allow you to push down debris, while straining out the particles which will remain in the bottom of the can. 

After you have some Pine Pitch collected, place the can into a larger container like an old tuna can.  Put water inside the tuna can and place your soup can with the pine

pitch inside.  When you apply heat to the tuna can, it will act as a double boiler and help keep the mixture from catching fire. You may want to pre-heat the pine pitch before hand. The Pine pitch can be overheated and become quite flammable so be careful at this point.  The pitch will likely begin to smoke very badly, however this is to be expected.  Make sure to not inhale the fumes. Turpentine is made from the distillation of pine sap so you don't want that stuff in your lungs! 

Once the pine pitch starts to meltdown, use something like a stick or a rod and carefully push down the debris down to the bottom of the soup can and carefully push the resin out the holes in the soup can and into another metal container of your choice. 

Once the resin has been seperated from the debris, place the container over the campfire or stove and allow it to begin to liquefy while stirring it with a clean stick or other disposable utensile.

When the resin becomes a liquid, you will need to add some materials to the mix. I have used sawdust and it worked well, but you can use other fillers like horse droppings, cattail fibres, or thistle down. The resin and filler will bind together and make the pine pitch significantly stronger. Do not use too much filler or you will have to wait until you can collect more sap to dilute the mixture to the proper proportions- it really becomes a trial and error to get the correct consistency. 

Once you have added the filler to your resin you will then need to add either fat or beeswax. Doing this will allow the Pine Pitch to become more stable and not become brittle. Place the can back on the heat source and slowly mix all ingredients into the resin and slowly mix with something about the size of a pencil. Mix the resin with a sharpened stick until you have a mixture with the consistency of tar. 

At this point, you will repeatedly dip the point of the stick into the tar-like mixture until you have a ball of sap on the end. Wet your hands so the resin doesn’t end up sticking and be sure that the pine pitch is not too hot as it will easily burn your hands. Roll the tar along the stick an inch in length. Make sure the point of the stick is protruding from the resin as you will need to light when you are ready to use your primitive epoxy. When you light the point it will continue to burn while slowly melting the hardened pine pitch. The reason for the sharp point is to make more presice application of the resin when you are ready to mount your arrowheads.

That's it!

Go give it a try and let us know how it turns out!