A lot of work for a little bit of glue. The simplest way to make glue
from pitch is to find an injured tree and collect the resin directly
from where it is leaking. I have a video showing that process that you
can check out if you’re not familiar with that process.
In many areas it is very easy to find trees leaking sap; but in my
little corner of the Pacific Northwest, maybe one in a hundred mature
Douglas firs will have a fresh wound where the sap is both accessible,
and not composed of at least 75% fir needles.
However, because fatwood stumps last decades there is an abundance of
resin soaked wood on the forest floor. I recently made a video showing
an efficient way to extract ounces of tar using a big metal can, but
have been thinking about ways to collect it without the metal.
I’ve tried setting pieces on rocks next to the fire and had reasonable
success with that method but decided to try sandwiching pieces of
fatwood between large flat hot rocks.
Because the rocks stay hot for so long the resin is very thin and hard
to scrape, but I’ve found that adding a bit of water cools it long
enough for it to get sticky and end up on the stick.
This is the second time I’ve used this approach and got pretty similar
results both times. While the amount of glue that results isn’t
impressive, there is enough there construct at least a half dozen
arrows.
Knowing I would be standing around watching hot rocks for a while I
heated up an extra one to use as a griddle and fried up some bacon for a
snack.
In keeping with the primitive theme I opted not to use my leather gloves
to move the hot rocks; instead using the abundant moss that coats
almost everything under the canopy. I first started using moss this way
to remove hot cooking containers from the fire and have found that it’s
very forgiving. A big handful of leaves works just as well, but
doesn’t stay together as well the moss.
It seemed a bit odd to make a video where the point is rendering sap
without a metal container and then start the fire out of an Altoids tin,
so I broke out my little cedar driftwood char box for this one, and
refilled and re-charred another batch of punkwood.
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As for the particulars, I don't know the species of moss,
and can't recall the name of the plant I gathered from the riverbed for
twigs. The stone was a piece of quartz, the knife is an Ontario SP50. The stump was an old Douglas fir, the charming little rodent was a Douglas squirrel, the tinder bundle material was black cottonwood inner bark, the fire was composed primarily of hemlock roots and alder driftwood. The arrow foreshaft is red osier dogwood, the point is likely some form of steatite, and it’s wrapped in roadkill salvaged deer sinew. The char box is made from cedar driftwood, the punkwood came from a rotten big leaf maple, the ash brush was Pacific Silver fir, and the guy fiddling with all this stuff is named Brian.