by Billy Berger

Photo 1: Large amounts of soft, sticky pine sap are oozing out of this injured tree.

I remember climbing and playing in young pine trees as a kid, and at the end of the day I would come home with pine sap all over my clothes and hands. Impervious to soap, water, and even, I remember thinking to myself, this has to be the most useless and annoying substance on earth. Little did I know, many years later, just how valuable pine sap would prove to be.

Photo 2: The short needles and small cones are distinctive of the shortleaf pine.

Before modern hot melt glue and epoxy were invented, pine sap was used for centuries by native peoples as an adhesive and waterproof filler. In the western United States, ponderosa pine trees are common, and one tree will often have gallons of sap dripping off its trunk and branches. Western Native American cultures made full use of this valuable resource, coating woven baskets with pine sap to create waterproof containers for carrying water whenever they travelled. But for primitive archers, it serves its most important role as hot-melt glue for securing stone points to the ends of arrows.

When a pine tree is injured, sap oozes out to cover the wound and protect it from insects. When roaming the forests, look for pine trees with damaged bark; sometimes you can find large amounts of sap on just one tree (photo 1). Regardless of which type of sap you collect, always try to get the freshest, softest sap you can find. Fresh sap tends to bond much better and hold the point much more securely. Old sap that is hard and brittle makes brittle glue that will crack away at the slightest movemen between the point and the shaft, but if that’s all you can find, then by all means use it.

Photo 3: Fresh sap is commonly found on shortleaf pines and makes excellent glue.

Making pine sap glue is a very easy process. But making quality glue means searching for the right kind of sap. Pine, fir, and spruce trees are good sources for sap, but some are better than others. In the southeastern United States, I seek out the shortleaf pine (photo 2). This tree has short needles, small cones, and the bark peels off in thin scales. This type of pine is much more resinous and produces copious amounts of sap that is perfect for making glue (photo 3). Most importantly, the sap it produces is often soft and sticky.

As mentioned earlier, ponderosa pines are sap-producing machines. When I lived in Oregon I remember a mature ponderosa just behind my office with gallons of sap oozing from just that one tree. Fir, spruce, juniper, and cedar also produce sap, but I have found that they produce very little, and their sap quickly becomes brittle and dry, making it less than ideal for hafting points.

After you have collected the sap, use a small, clean tuna can to slowly heat it up and melt it. You can put the tuna can over a gas or electric stove, or a small campfire. In a primitive setting a flat rock works very well. Just be careful during this stage because pine sap is very flammable and can easily burst into flames. As the sap melts, mix it up to ensure it is thoroughly melted.

Most likely there will be small pieces of bark, pine needles, and other debris in the sap. If you so desire, the melted sap can be poured through a metal screen to filter out the impurities, but I skip this step. I usually just remove the largest debris from the sap as I’ve found it will not affect its strength.

Photo 4: Used for centuries, glue sticks are the author’s preferred method of storing his finished glue.

Now that the sap is melted, mix in a binder to give the sap more strength. Binders can be small pieces of fibrous vegetable matter, crushed charcoal, wood ash, dried and crushed rabbit or deer droppings, sawdust, or even fine dirt. I prefer to use finely-crushed charcoal made from burned softwoods like pine or willow. I mix in just enough charcoal so that when the sap is stirred it has a dark green color. Exactly how much binder you will need depends on the quantity of sap and how fresh it is. Whatever binder you choose, add it slowly and a little at a time. Ideally you want just enough binder so that when the sap cools it will be slightly gummy, like very stiff chewing gum. That way it will retain some flexibility, which will allow the glue to give slightly if the stone point hits something hard. Brittle glue will shatter and crumble when the point impacts a target, and the glue bond will be lost.

If the only sap you can find is dry and brittle, you can improve its flexibility by adding beeswax or beef fat to it when it is melted. Don’t overdo it though. Whatever you add to the sap, always add a little bit at a time and then let it cool to check its consistency. You may have to do this several times in order to get the consistency just right, but it is worth the time and effort.

You should now have a container with what appears to be black tar in the bottom. Once the glue has the right consistency, it can either be stored as-is and will keep indefinitely, or it can be used immediately. Prehistoric cultures would often glob the warm glue on the end of a small stick to make a glue stick they could carry with them on their travels (photo 4).

Photo 5: Grind the base and the notches of stone points to dull the edges so they won’t cut the sinew wrappings.

When carving the notch in the end of the arrow for the stone point, be very meticulous so the point fits perfectly in line with the arrow. Test the fit frequently; the stone point should fit snugly and not wobble when the arrow is spun. Also, before gluing the point, use a small waste flake to grind the basal edges of the point as well as the inside of the notches to dull them, otherwise they will cut the sinew wrappings (photo 5).

When the fit is good and the point is in line with the shaft, remove the point from the arrow and carefully heat the base of the stone point while also melting a small

Photo 6: Heating the base of the point and the pine sap glue will result in a much better glue bond.

Photo 7: While the glue is still warm and soft, push the point into the notch and align it with the rest of the arrow.

amount of glue (photo 6). For this step I use a candle because it gives very precise heat over a very small area. Heating the stone point is important because the glue will bond much better if the stone point is very warm.

Once the glue is melted, fill the notch on the end of the arrow with glue, then slide the stone point into the notch and adjust it so it is perfectly in line with the shaft (photo 7). When the point is aligned, carefully hold the point over the candle and slowly rotate it so the point and glue are slowly heated up one last time (photo 8).

When the point reaches a certain temperature, the glue will run and fill all the remaining voids between the point and the shaft. Check the alignment once more, and make any adjustments needed. Just be careful because the point may be quite hot. Then set it aside to cool.

Photo 8: Carefully heating the stone point will liquefy the glue so it fills in any gaps. This ensures maximum strength between the point and shaft.

The final step is wrapping the point with sinew. Soak a long strand of leg or back sinew in warm water until it is soft, then chew it for several minutes to further soften it. Once it is very soft and white, wrap the shaft just under the base of the point, and then criss-cross the sinew through the notches (photo 9). After several rounds, wrap the remaining sinew just under the base of the point and continue down the shaft. On the last wrap, tuck the end of the sinew under itself and pull it tight. Cut off any excess and then smooth the sinew with your fingers. Put it aside to let it dry for an hour or two and the arrow will be ready for use (photo 10).

Photo 9: Deer sinew is wrapped over the glue to make a very secure binding that shrinks as it dries.

If you don’t have real sinew, you can use artificial sinew or even unwaxed dental floss, but ironically the performance of the more primitive sinew greatly surpasses man-made alternatives. Synthetic threads don’t work as well as real sinew because sinew shrinks as it dries, holding the point much more securely.

Photo 10: When the sinew has dried, the point is ready for use.

This primitive method of securing stone points will result in an amazingly strong bond that can take a tremendous amount of abuse. Using just pine sap glue and sinew to mount stone points, I have been thoroughly impressed by their strength. I have smashed stone points against rocks, glanced them off cement walls, buried them in trees, and shot them through deer and found the pine sap glue still holding the points as securely as though they were glued with modern epoxy. In the more severe cases where the stone points have hit rocks head-on, the point will often be pulverized, and yet after removing the sinew wrappings the base of the stone point will still be held securely in its haft by the pine sap glue.

Photo 11: This mature whitetail doe fell to an Osage self bow and stone point secured with pine sap glue and sinew.

Photo 12: Although heavily damaged after breaking a rib, this stone point was still held securely by the pine sap glue and sinew.

Last October I shot a stone-tipped arrow through both lungs of a very large doe, its forward momentum finally stopped when the stone point shattered the fourth rib on the far side. The doe ran over 100 yards before the arrow fell out of her chest. We recovered the deer that night (photo 11), but it wasn’t until the following afternoon that I found the arrow. Even though the stone point had broken after shattering the rib, it was still held fast by the pine sap glue and sinew wrappings (photo 12). For me, it was an eye-opening example of how well primitive materials work in real hunting scenarios.