Natural glues

[Alex Roddie]

What would you say is the best form of natural glue, from the perspective of fixing flint implements to shafts (spears, arrows and axes)? I suppose I'm after a good 'all-rounder' which is both easy to produce and strong.

In the past I have used pine resin mixed with shredded birch bark for durability, but I have found it messy and it takes days to set.

Birch tar looks fantastic but I'm not sure how feasible it would be to produce using only primitive tools ... Mesolithic hunters didn't have baked bean tins.

If there are any other natural glues that can be easily produced from simple ingredients found in a pine/birch forest, I'd be interested to hear about them.

 

[slowworm]

Various plants can provide glues although I don't know how good they are. A useful starting point for further investigation would be this list from PFAF: http://www.pfaf.org/database/search_use.php?K[]=Adhesive

Each one links to details about the plant and there will be a reference to where they have obtained the info from. This book often crops up "Howes. F. N. Vegetable Gums and Resin".

One idea would be to use cherry or plum resin although I doubt it would be that water proof.

I'd be interested to hear how you get on.

 

[robin wood]

Birch tar looks fantastic but I'm not sure how feasible it would be to produce using only primitive tools ... Mesolithic hunters didn't have baked bean tins.

I have heard this question asked before but never heard a good answer. Fact is birch tar was the all purpose glue of prehistory particularly for fitting flint to wood but I have not heard a good description of how it was made without bean tins...or high fired pottery vessels. Anyone know?

 

[JohnC]

I wondered if it was wrapping foods in bark and cooking them under a fire and finding the tar in that fashion. I guess pecked out stone vessels would work to collect, would stacking the bark above it and surrounding with soil then fire work?

This article http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...d=809099&md5=9119fa6b90c39b115a4b7c6cb12d2e65 talks about funnel shaped features.... but is a later date.

 

[Alex Roddie]

I wondered if it was wrapping foods in bark and cooking them under a fire and finding the tar in that fashion. I guess pecked out stone vessels would work to collect, would stacking the bark above it and surrounding with soil then fire work?

I had thought of trying something similar ... my thoughts are that this might be quite wasteful though. You don't seem to get a lot of tar for a certain volume of bark and depending on soil type, it might drain away of get clogged with sand, rendering it useless.

Maybe a fire pit lined with clay would work? Sort of like a buried oven, just for birch bark instead of food.

The main requirement seems to be that the heating must be anaerobic, otherwise the bark burns instead of producing tar. I think this is worthy of experimentation!

 

[rich59]

For what it's worth I wonder if birch tar could be relatively simply collected without modern metal container by doing the whole thing in a birch bark container and putting into it a mixture of hot rocks and more birch bark.

Or you could perhaps have a flat rock surface. On this put 2 layers of heated rocks with a seam of birch bark in between the 2 layers. The tar would then possibly collect on the rock surface beneath the bottom layers of hot rocks.

Another idea would be to use charcoal. Burn a fire for some time and you get a pile of charcoal. Only the surface glows and keeps oxygen out of the rest of the pile. So, put your bundle of birch bark into the middle of a heap of charcoal - on a flat rock to collect the tar. Having a hole in the middle would be even better, so the tar could run out before getting too hot.

Any of these ideas worth trying?

 

[clcuckow]

From what I have read we know that they had it because it has been found and dated in an archaeological context (I read they used it as spoggy!) but we don't know how they made it and so far experimental archaeologist have by and large failed in finding a method that works.

Another one to chalk up on the lost in time column.

But is it so bad to 'cheat' and us a more modern method to get the material as the end result would still be the same?

 

[Cobweb]

I'm interested in the ancient way of making birch bark tar although I havent a clue on how they did it.

Alex, have you though about really thick hide glue?

 

[robin wood]

I would be interested if anyone can come up with refs to people trying to make it without modern containers. One thought I had wondered about is whether it was a by product of charcoal burning. I have not done earth burns only made charcoal in metal containers and not used birch but say you were making charcoal from birch in an earth burn, get it hot enough and the tar will run, no oxygen so it just drips to the bottom of the pile. When you have sealed your burn and its gone out and you clear the charcoal you may also have a pool of birch tar. Total speculation.

 

[Sim23_10]

Never done any of these so can't comment on how good they are, but simple breakdown of recent reading.

Charcoal + Tree Resin heated together and mixed to a paste, the application shown was sealing the fiber wrap round the arrowhead/shaft.

Chewing bluebell bulbs to a paste and spitting it out, used to fix the fletchings onto the shaft of the arrow, along with some kind of fiber to wrap them. Extreme caution should be taken as the book said the bluebell bulb is poisonous.

If anyone has ever tried these please let us know how good/bad they are.

 

[Allie]

Never done any of these so can't comment on how good they are, but simple breakdown of recent reading.

Charcoal + Tree Resin heated together and mixed to a paste, the application shown was sealing the fiber wrap round the arrowhead/shaft.

Chewing bluebell bulbs to a paste and spitting it out, used to fix the fletchings onto the shaft of the arrow, along with some kind of fiber to wrap them. Extreme caution should be taken as the book said the bluebell bulb is poisonous.

If anyone has ever tried these please let us know how good/bad they are.

Ray Mears did exactly this in one of his programs and it worked very well.

 

[Sim23_10]

would explain things it was a Ray Mears book.

 

[Alex Roddie]

Never done any of these so can't comment on how good they are, but simple breakdown of recent reading.

Charcoal + Tree Resin heated together and mixed to a paste, the application shown was sealing the fiber wrap round the arrowhead/shaft.

Thanks for that. I think my problem with pine resin is that I tend to harvest it runny. If I find the solid nodules and melt them it might solve this problem!

 

[Allie]

Thanks for that. I think my problem with pine resin is that I tend to harvest it runny. If I find the solid nodules and melt them it might solve this problem!

It doesn't have to be solid nodules, it can be the little flakey stuff that looks a bit like a part of the bark too. I think that's generally found on pines..

 

[JohnC]

I recall ?PatrickM doing a tutorial on mixing pine resin with powdered charcoal to procuce a more elastic and resiliant "glue" IIRC he did this with a flattish rock by a fire to melt the resin and get rid of "bits" then stirring in the powdered charcoal with a stick then transferring to a storage stick. No metal pots involved.

 

[robin wood]

My favorite video is "Ceasars bark Canoe" a gorgeous film of an old Cree going through all the stages of building a canoe. He uses pine resin melted together with some form of animal fat in a pot, he scoops it out into a cloth about the size of a tea towel, twists the ends up then just keeps twisting till the resin is squeezed out through the cloth. This is used to seal over the spruce root stitching and to waterproof the seams.

 

[Alex Roddie]

Hmm I think I will experiment with the charcoal/resin idea when I get the chance. I will also try making birch tar as well because it seems more convenient to use (even if it is more difficult to make). Whichever I end up using, I will need a fair amount because I've started making a flint axe and will need a lot of glue to firmly stick the blade in position. The system I'm using is a gouged socket in the shaft, into which is inserted the pointed butt of the axe blade. I think it will work better than splitting the shaft--a technique that has never 'held' for very long when I've tried it in the past--but I will need a lot of glue to fill up the hole ... adding finely-shredded bark as well might give it some extra stiffness.

 

[John Fenna]

My favorite video is "Ceasars bark Canoe" a gorgeous film of an old Cree going through all the stages of building a canoe. He uses pine resin melted together with some form of animal fat in a pot, he scoops it out into a cloth about the size of a tea towel, twists the ends up then just keeps twisting till the resin is squeezed out through the cloth. This is used to seal over the spruce root stitching and to waterproof the seams.

One of the finest canoe/bushcraft videos I have ever seen - beets RMs canoe build into a cocked hat!
Amust see for any canoeing bushcrafter!