“Life’s a pitch, and then you buy” (Billy Mays)
There are some primitive skills (like fiction fire) that are difficult to master and others (like making pitch) that are satisfyingly straightforward.
In the past pitch was used for all sorts of purposes – attaching arrow heads or the split feathers used for flights onto the arrow shaft, for fixing the tang of a blade into a wooden handle, for waterproofing and strengthening fine cordage used for bindings, fixing cracks in wood (e.g. in the hull of a boat or a wooden bowl)….or any other purpose that required binding or waterproofing.
In the jungle it is relatively easy to find the essential ingredient (tree resin) as many of the trees here produce it to heal damaged bark (e.g. when a branch falls off) and I often come across lumps of it on lying on the ground (usually close to the tree trunk).
These days, of course, we take glues for granted and there is a range of types to choose from depending on what materials we are trying to glue together, but in the past people had to be more inventive. One type of glue that the Orang Asal use is the amazingly sticky pulp inside the Terap tree fruit. They will smear some of this onto a tree branch and wait for some unsuspecting bird to land on the branch. The glue isn’t strong enough to hold the claws of the bird but as it tries to fly away its wings get stuck to the branch and the more it struggles the more stuck it gets.
In this video I show you how I make pitch: I use a method that has the advantage of being very easy and quick. There are other more refined methods that produce better quality pitch but I find the pitch produced by the method I use to be good enough for the jobs I want to do with it.
Hi Paul,
When you dip the pitch into water, and then again in the pot, I think you have some water between the pitch layers.
If you cracked it in half, did you notice some bubbles in it?
Bamboo charcoal is quite different from wood charcoal, how does t turn out with bamboo charcoal?
My method to break charcoal into fine dust: you put the pieces inside a big flexible green leaf, you fold the leaf in half, and roll a stick on it. Or mash a stone on it.
Do you carry pitch-stick with you, or just make some if needed?
Thanks for posting
Hi Wawa,
Thanks for the comment and sorry (as usual!) for slow reply but I’ve been a bit busy over here. There may be some water trapped in the pitch but I doubt there’s much as pitch is such oily stuff. I think the key point to bear in mind is that if you make pitch that can ‘do the job’ that you want it to then it doesn’t matter that much if the method isn’t absolutely perfectly correct. Even burning the resin (as I do) is something frowned upon by purists, but it works well enough for me.
I’ve not tried bamboo charcoal although can’t see why it wouldn’t work as well.
I don’t carry pitch sticks with me but make them when needed at home when I’m experimenting with primitive technology applications.
Cheers!
Paul
Thanks for another great video Paul!
In a future video, could you please show us your process for collecting resin in the jungle? Which trees do you use, what do they look like, and what should we look for?
I know what to look for in Canada (pine trees are easy to find), but here in S.E.A. it’s difficult to find trees which have recognizable resin. I’ve seen trees that look almost like pine, but they don’t seem to have much visible resin.
Thanks again!
Martin
Hi Martin,
Many thanks for the comment and support – appreciated – and as for finding resin it’s hard to give any general rules as there are so many types of trees here. The ones I look for have this wrinkly bark and then I just scan up the tree and check around the base of the tree for any lumps that have fallen off. I think because branches get snapped off all the time in the jungle (by monkeys and the like) the tree are usually all a bit damaged and those that produce resin will do so to heal the wound so it’s really just a matter of looking at the trunks to find some.
Saying that in the secondary forests (which generally don’t have hardwood trees) it’s a different story as those fast growing trees don’t produce the resin we’re after so that might be the reason you’ve found it hard to find up till now. If you go to a relatively old forest (with hard wood trees) I think you’ll find it more easily.
Hope that helps,
Cheers!
Paul