Pine resin

[Toddy]

I was at Chatelherault Country Park last weekend and collected as much cherry resin as I felt like within 100m of the entrance(so ignore that stretch, it'll be cleaned out).

I find this cherry resin thing frustrating. I've pruned my cherry trees (again!) and stillI have nothing showing.
There's a lot of wind damaged pine at Chatelherault if you follow the path to the Duke's memorial monument. Go past Cadzow castle and vere right.
HWMBLT brought me home beautiful white pieces of resin last week from a walk up Ben Ledi. Wonderful scent and no debris attached to it at all. Lovely stuff
Cheers,
Toddy

 

[Grooveski]

How well established are yours? There didn't appear to be much coming from any trees less than 6" diameter.
The one's which gave the most were those on the western edge of the clumps, which were catching direct sunlight in the afternoon.

Cheers for the pine pointer.

 

[Grooveski]

That's a great spot Toddy. Collected a fist sized lump in under an hour.

Most came from a pine which had fallen and split along the grain for about six feet. The resin had exuded to fill the gap then hardened and it was just a case of running a knife along behind it and catching the white crumbly resin as it popped out in wee lumps.
Plenty oozing out of knots all over the place as well. The kind that gets everywhere.

Now for the icky bit. On the table in front of me are three different types of resin, a bunch of stainless crucibles, hardwood charcoal, wee baggies full of rabbit and sheep droppings, beeswax, a dod of lard, some sticks to collect it all on, water and a stove.
This is gonna be a very messy experiment, I can just feel it. Guess I best disconnect the smoke detector too.

 

[JonnyP]

That's a great spot Toddy. Collected a fist sized lump in under an hour.

Most came from a pine which had fallen and split along the grain for about six feet. The resin had exuded to fill the gap then hardened and it was just a case of running a knife along behind it and catching the white crumbly resin as it popped out in wee lumps.
Plenty oozing out of knots all over the place as well. The kind that gets everywhere.

Now for the icky bit. On the table in front of me are three different types of resin, a bunch of stainless crucibles, hardwood charcoal, wee baggies full of rabbit and sheep droppings, beeswax, a dod of lard, some sticks to collect it all on, water and a stove.
This is gonna be a very messy experiment, I can just feel it. Guess I best disconnect the smoke detector too.

How did you get on with your experiment Grooveski..?

 

[xylaria]

Not meaning to be pandantic, cherry oozes gum because the tree has a fungal infection, the gum can spread the infection. You should make sure blades/spoons are cleaned in very hot water after use, they will be sticky anyway. Also it is called a gum not a resin because it is water soluble and resin isn't. I make ink sticks with mine, add soot and dry. Then mix with water to make ink. A chewing gum can be made with it as well. Natural clean lumps are beautiful.

I moved away from where I used to collect mine, this thread has reminded me to go and get some more.

 

[dwardo]

I have access to a lot of pine in my local haunt which i like to use for torches. My only tips are..

1 When looking for it dont just dismiss the lumps that look like knots as they are usually just pine resin covered in debris. I find that i very rarely see the pine resin in a clear form it usualy just looks like a knot and a quick poke with a knife will help you tell what it is.

2./ When making torches try to use a split pine stick as it tends to burn better due to the existing pine and also use a stick at least the thickness of your thumb.

2./ When colecting it dont store it in your pocket no matter how cold it is

 

[Grooveski]

How did you get on with your experiment Grooveski..?

Every bit as messy as expected.

Made up half a dozen different mixes in small quantities, popped the resulting dods on a bit of wood and jammed a twig in each sticking up.
The pitch only one was brittle and cracked up easily. The one mixed with charcoal seemed much the same which was a surprise. Mixing in lard gave off the most interesting smell(not very nice at all) but was more like what I was after.
I didn't go very far with it all, never tried combinations of additives. To be honest I burnt my hand on a molten dod of it, knocked it on the head for the night and never got back to it again.
The most useful looking basic mix was just resin and droppings, I had to bash the twig off with a rock and the pitch was still well stuck to both surfaces.

Made up a larger batch of that intending to use it between the handle and head of a stone adze - not to hold it in place but more to fill the gaps and stop the head wobbling and loosening off the rawhide wrap that was the main binding. At the same time though a pal was playing with rendering hide glue, he'd ended up with loads of the stuff and when I saw the hardened glue it looked more like the consistancy I'd been after so I used a thick smear of that instead.
When set it looked the part and was able to whop down inch thick hazel shoots in one or two whacks. A couple of days later back at the house I went at a stave of dry ash with it to see if it was the right shape for whittling bows with.
Learned that dry wood is a no-no for knapped tools. Lifted a big flake right off the middle of the cutting edge, totaly trashing the head. I guess that's why folk went to the (huge) trouble of pecking and grinding axe heads - just knapping them out and using ones with flake scars means there are strong spots and weak spots whereas a ground head with rounded faces would be less likely to flake. The head was good quality greenstone and would probably have coped fine with what I was trying to do if the wood had been green still.

 

[Toddy]

Not meaning to be pandantic, cherry oozes gum because the tree has a fungal infection, the gum can spread the infection.QUOTE]

Thank you and that is presumably why my geans don't leak the gum despite frequent pruning; no infection

Gavin has been refining my pine resin, it now looks like the most beautiful amber beads He covered the crushed pieces that were covered in debris, in real turps (less than £20 for 5 litres, I'll happily split ) and then strained it. The liquid gold stuff was kept in a glass beaker on top of an upturned little lamp and the turps slowly evaporated off, the house smelt glorious and then when it was nearly set he rolled it into bools. We've wrapped them in wax paper like sweeties

cheers,
Toddy