Birch tar/oil possible fuel ?

[camp.craft.colin]

Hi folks iv been looking around the net but cannot find a good answer so here goes . I'm wondering if I made a birch bark container and put birch tar/oil and a length of jute rope for a wick would i be able to create some form of Eco lamp carbon footprint free ?

 

[Toddy]

The soot is unbelievable I don't know if it would wick safely either or if it'd just take off and set fire to the entire surface of the tar.
It's also fairly expensive to buy, and labour and fuel intensive to make, so.....I think

I can only think that if it were good then why the hang did folks go to all the bother of hunting whales for oil for lamps?

Interested to hear how you get on with it though if you do decide to try it

atb,
M

 

[camp.craft.colin]

I think its worth a shot seen a vid on YouTube where a guy used fungus as the container and he seemed to get fairly good results from it . As for procuring the tar/oil never done it myself but it seams fairly straight forward from what iv seen

 

[Toddy]

What fungus did he use ?
We routinely get over three, and often well over four hours burn time from a fomes one.

I don't know, I haven't tried it with oil, but I have half a dozen big fomes sitting and a few of the piptoporus too. I also have about 300ml of birch tar, somewhere.

Tell you what....you try it and let us know how you get on All I can see is that black soot when I spilled some into hot coals

The oil's a footer to do in reality. It works very well, but it's really only worth the bother if you pack the tin really full of bark. That said, it's sometimes surprising just how much tar you get from it

It's all good stuff and it's pretty neat to do it too.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Clouston98]

I'm not sure about the lamp, but I've made my own birch tar oil before, great fun, worked great, wonderful smell too! I did the method with the two containers, there is a tutorial on here somewhere .

 

[Dave Budd]

didn't the Russians make a lot of the stuff during the war? I've got 'Russian Oil' in mind head from somewhere and I'm sure it was distilled and used in place of motor oil or diesel. Could be remembering something else of course!

 

[Toddy]

I know of Russian oil as another name for Birch tar, but I didn't know that they refined it. We learn something everyday

I have white birch essential oil that is very pure, but it would still not be a clean burn. The smell is great outdoors though

cheers,
M

 

[The Ratcatcher]

"Russian Petroleum" or Birch oil was issued to the British army prior to WW1 as a rifle lubricant, and I have come across a WW2 German rifle cleaning kit that still had some in the oil bottle.

 

[camp.craft.colin]

Also when is the best time to harvest tar/oil to get the highest amount possible ?

 

[Dave Budd]

probably doesn't make much difference, but since the sap is lowest in the winter I would suggest using wood felled then just as when making charcoal.

 

[rg598]

It will work, but it will certainly not be eco friendly or carbon footprint free. The results will be similar to burning any other type of oil.

 

[wilderlore]

It will work, but it will certainly not be eco friendly or carbon footprint free. The results will be similar to burning any other type of oil.

However if you carry out carbon offsetting by planting another tree it creates a carbon sink and therefore removes carbon monoxide from the atmosphere.

Ste

 

[Toddy]

Aye, when the tree grows and that'll take years.

The stuff stinks when it burns and making it not only needs fuel, but it gives off a heck of a lot of pollution as it burns. Rectifying or distilling it afterwards takes more fuel and is even more polluting.

I reckon that if a fuel oil was made from it then it was because it was all that they had. Any vegetable oil would be much more environmentally friendly.

I'm not saying it's not interesting, or not worth learning to do; just that I really question it's eco-footprint stuff.

cheers,
M

 

[camp.craft.colin]

We seam to be going of topic a little hear the main thing I want to know is will it work if not what is the best way to get the best results if possible

 

[Toddy]

I reckon it'll work
I reckon it'll burn black and sooty as the earl of hell's riding boots, but it'll burn and give off light.

I'm pretty sure that if you put it into a slightly hollowed out fomes then it'll burn very well indeed

and, I'm looking forward to the photos

cheers,
M

 

[Skaukraft]

And how would you extract the oil? Asking it to leave the tree in a non-energy-consuming manner?
As far as i know the most common way to extract birch oil in larger quantities is by steam destilation.
But no matter which method you use it will demand the use of energy. The part of the plant that contains most oil is the leaf buds in the spring.
You could maybe squeese the oil out of the buds the same way they make olive oil. But My guess it would be very labour intensive and time consuming. Just to gather enough buds to extract any usable amount of oil would take ages....
Absolutely a interesting project, but I think I would forgett the eco-friendly low footprint part of it, as I belive the bottom line would end up negative on the hydrocarbon side.

 

[camp.craft.colin]

I figure roses tin and bake beans tins in a camp fire to extract the oil

 

[camp.craft.colin]

Also does it have to be dead on the ground , dead standing or freshly felled as the farmer who's woods I use has just felled a load of birch ?

 

[Toddy]

That'll do nicely

Might be worth taking a good look and seeing if any of the bark's worth saving for other uses too.

M

 

[rg598]

However if you carry out carbon offsetting by planting another tree it creates a carbon sink and therefore removes carbon monoxide from the atmosphere.

Ste

Exact same thing can be said for burning petrol; just plant a tree to offset the CO2 from the burn, and you are good to go. After all, both fuels were produced from organic matter. One was done by the earth over thousands of years through compression and decay, the other by a person extracting it directly from the tree.