Pine pitch step by step: the forgotten multi-tool of the woods

Pine pitch is one of those materials our great-grandparents knew and most of us have forgotten. A new Survival Sullivan guide walks through making it, and it made me appreciate how many jobs a lump of tree resin can do.

The listed uses are waterproofing wood and leather, sealing cracks, gluing together primitive arrows and tools, and acting as a waterproof fire starter or the fuel for a slow-burning torch. It has also been mixed into natural varnishes and used as a folk remedy for cuts and bites.

You start with hardened resin, which you find as amber lumps on knots, broken branches and storm-damaged trees. The author warns against wounding a healthy tree just to make sap flow. Then you add a filler, most often hardwood ash from your own campfire, though sawdust or dried plant fibers also work, and a binder such as beef tallow or beeswax for flexibility.

The method is a double-boiler setup: a large flameproof container holding two smaller cans, one with holes punched in the bottom so molten resin drips through into the other. Tongs or can lifters are essential because everything gets blazing hot, and the guide recommends using old cans rather than your good cookware.

What I liked is how little gear it takes. A fire, a few cans and some ash turn waste resin into something genuinely useful, which is exactly the kind of trick that makes bushcraft satisfying.

Source: Survival Sullivan