Birch tar glue

[Toddy]

It's a *very* wet day here so I've been playing
I've made pine resin glue but the mess......oh the mess......and did I mention it's black and sticky and my kitchen has white walls ?.....

Okay, all joking aside, what can I use as an additive other than powdered charcoal to stop the resin glue cracking? My cleaned up resin is beautiful, looks like amber, but the charcoal dust is beginning to annoy me.

The house smells wonderful though.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[gregorach]

Beeswax or bear fat should do the job - both are used to make "gum" for patching birch bark canoes, IIRC. Bear fat might be a little difficult to get hold of though... I would expect that any kind of tallow would do in a pinch.

 

[andyn]

Any wax will work, grated candles etc. but yeah fat is good, and dried animal scat works from rabbits etc works too.

If im making it in the garage, i'll use artists willow charcoal sticks crushed in a pestal and motar. Works a treat.

 

[Toddy]

Thanks folks

I used the willow charcoal I made from the basketry offcuts, and it's beautiful stuff, but there's no getting away from the mess I get my hands in using it for making glue.
I'll have a shot with the beeswax first since it's handy.

Are those your own knapping Andy ?
Nice

cheers,
Toddy

 

[andyn]

I used the willow charcoal I made from the basketry offcuts, and it's beautiful stuff, but there's no getting away from the mess I get my hands in using it for making glue

Toddy, don't want to teach you to suck eggs but I use the following process to make my pine resin glue and i stay mess free.

Pop your charcoal in a metal pan (i use a crusader cup for small quantities ) crush up into a fine powder and add then clean resin in chunks.

Pop on a low heat and once it starts to melt stir continously until it is all molten

Set aside from the heat to prevent it boiling, but retaining enough heat to stay molten

Get a cup of cold water

Using thickish twigs twist it in the molten resin, remove and slowly spin the twig to stop it dripping....dip in the cold water to set it quickly.

Redip it in the resin, remove, twist, dip in water.

If you blow on it a bit to cool it a you can also shape it before dipping it in the water so you get a nice clean cyclinder of resin.

Continue until you have a nice lump on the twig, then get a new twig and go again.

Are those your own knapping Andy ?
Nice

cheers,
Toddy

Top two are, can't take credit for the bottom one.

Thanks.

 

[Toddy]

Thanks Andy normally I make those little olives on sticks of the glue, but this time I thought I'd be smart and make the *pencils* with birch bark wrapped around the glue. The idea is that you unpeel just enough of the bark to reveal the glue, melt it near a flame or on a hot rock and apply, peeling off more bark as necessary. I wanted a kind of child friendly handling bundle of these sticks for a schools day. Should have stuck to the normal kind
It sounds easy enough, but rolling the glue out in charcoal dust seemed to be more effective than just trying to wrap the stuff up in bark. The bark is fine and the lenticles are a pain
I think I'll have a go with willow tubes and see if the stuff sets into it, failing that it's going to have to be a soft bit of leather gathered up like a mini pudding.

The microwave is incredibly useful when working indoors, it's astonishing how much steam the resin gives off though I thought I'd set the stuff on fire at first

cheers,
Toddy

 

[w00dsmoke]

I'm really interested in this. I have a huge few chunks of resin and I've been experimenting with making things with it. I read somewhere that you can purify resin by letting it dissolve in turpentine and either evaporate the turpentine off by heating or sunlight and then straining the resin through a filter.

My experience with this that the resin does not totally dissolve, it breaks down into a powder like sediment at the bottom of the jar and the result makes the return on resin very miniscule in comparison to the rsin used. I don't know if anyone esle has tried this?

And of the mixtures to add to the resin to make glue? The ratios needed, what are they to enable good elasticity and strength? Some folk have used crushed egg shells instead of charcoal, others a mixture of charcoal and beeswax? I'm really curious to hear of others experience in this particularly the rough ratios used.

W00dsmoke

 

[Toddy]

I did the turpentine soak and the strained resin is beautiful HWMBLT put it into a glass beaker, upturned one of those little desk lamps and let the resin heat up on the glass plate of the lamp. It slowly dries off until it's a malleable lump of honey coloured amber and the smell in the house is really, really good
Not terribly bushcrafty, more stillroom crafty but it's really nice stuff.
For glue I just picked over the resin, heated it up and strained it through an old teastrainer.
It's still very good stuff.

PatrickM did a tutorial a while back on making the stuff beside a fire.....I'll see if I can find the thread.

cheers,
Toddy

p.s.
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8039&highlight=resin

 

[Dave Budd]

There seems to be a bit of to-ing and fro-ing between birch and pine tar here, can we clariy the differences in production, preparation and use please?

I only ask coz I had a brief play with birch tar last week as I don't have any pine trees to scrap at my place, but I do have a lot of birch. I basically followed that great biscuit tin tutorial on bcuk. I managed to get half a bean tin of nice thick black goo, that smelt of tar I started to boil it down next to the fire until it was a thick paste; it could be spread onto a stick but wouldn't set. So I put it near the heat for another 30 seconds and got cruchy lumps instead complete waste of the tar that I had made :C

Any advice on what I did wrong? does birch tar just not set when cold? Does it need to be condenced more gentle?

Help?