Learned about some of the uses of Pine Pitch/ Tar/ Sap at Bushcraft this year so I decided to start making some. First me and the kiddos collected a 20 oz Cup worth of Pine sap from a local park ( Not many pine trees around..) As this project was unplanned I used a Mora knife I found under my seat and a styrofoam cup) below picture was before sorting. Had the kiddos sort out the big “nuggets” of sap first. As we cannot have a open fire safely at our house we decided to use a small propane stove and a old cooking pot. Big “nuggets” show below. Started melting the big nuggets first. Once the big nuggets were mostly melted added the rest of the small sap pieces below. The small pieces started to melt quickly More melting Once boiling we poured the sap through a fine mesh filter After all was poured through. You can see that we did a ok job pre cleaning the material as very little was actually left In the fine strainer. The final product It does not look like and is not much . But as we were not able to collect much we are very happy with the amount that we were able to clean.
Currently we don’t have a specific use in mind, we just wanted a easy project outdoors over Christmas break. Maybe If we get enough of it in the future It can be used for for primitive blade handles.
Was a nice day to walk around the local park. I used the PR4 and the mora. The kiddos each got a CR2.5 to use.
The End Results Managed to finish filling the 2 cup silver container. Had enough left over to start filling the 2nd tin
Newest test! Heated the filtered Pine Sap and mixed 3 parts Sap to 1 part Wood Ash. “Glued” 3 cedar boards together and waited 24hrs to dry. Attached Eyelets and 550 cord. Using a hanging scale and pull strength it did not come undone until we applied 113.9 pounds of weight! Pretty good for some Tree Sap IMO
Well the Glue strength test project took 1st place in the Kiddos grade at the school science fair! They especially loved the fact we made our own “glue” to test against store bought. These were the extras that never fully separated but instead broke free of the device.