Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Around the Campfire => Topic started by: dinorocks on October 19, 2020, 12:26:58 pm
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I was told a while back that there are rabbit droppings mixed with pine sap (tar) on the "glue" that I melt for hafting stone points to the arrow shafts. Are the rabbit droppings for filler, to help with the glue setting, or something else (or someone is pulling my leg)? I'm making some new hunting arrows and someone asked me...
Thanks!
Dino
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ahhh...just figured it out. Fresh sap is too sticky to be used as is and needs a temper added to increase its strength and make it harden properly...rabbit droppings have partially digested vegetable fibers and makes an ideal tempering agent. Charcoal is also used as a tempering agent.
Hopefully I can harvest with this arrow...it would be my first stone point-harvest deer!
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Yep, not hard to figure out why when it starts to stick to your fingers. When you wrap the point, be sure and carry your sinew or thread about two inches down the shaft to strengthen it from splitting when you hit something.
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The dried rabbit poo, like charcoal adds body to the pitch and adds strength but won't make sticky pitch un-sticky. When I make pitch glue I start with hard, brittle pitch(not sticky), add some bees wax to soften it somewhat and finely ground charcoal to add body. If you use sticky pitch it will remain sticky until the volatile oils evaporate which can take a long time. If all you have is sticky pitch you can cook the volatile oils out but you have to be very careful doing this because it will ignite if it gets too hot. Also cook it outside for safety sake and to keep out of trouble with the rest of the household. -C- :o
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Pat, I've come up with a quick way to build a Pitch ball like Dino had pictured.
I have been splitting small pieces of "liter knot", pitch pine or any other tree with volital sap.
Then throw it all in an old pot and bring it to a rolling boil. Then with your designated stick, start twirling it in all of the resin that has floated to the top. Just twirl, cool and build up some more.
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I've been adding pure talc powder to the pitch and it works very well to make the mix stiffer. It's cheap too.
I also always add some powdered asphaltum (bitumen) as well, instead of charcoal. The asphaltum makes it very dark, like charcoal, but also makes the glue more workable by increasing the melting point a little. It's less sticky at lower temps.
I've never used animal dropping in the glue and there is only one place (that I know of) that mentions droppings as a "possible ingredient" in the ancient glue mix. Most glue used on the real artifacts is straight pine or other evergreen pitch (waterproof) or sap (not waterproof) with maybe a little powdered clay for color and stiffness.
Beeswax was never used in the New World until after European contact. It was used in Europe after the domestication of the honey bee. The proportion is about 10% of the mix.
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In case anyone is wondering how Ishi hafted his points, here is a quote from, "Hunting with the Bow and Arrow", By Saxton Pope, 1923.
When ready for use, these heads were set on the end of the shaft with heated resin and bound in place with sinew which encircled the end of the arrow and crossed diagonally through the barb notches with many recurrences.
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Jack,
So what would be a good recipe for an authentic Native American pine pitch glue? The additives you mentioned...would one be able to gather them naturally?
On my bucket list is taking a large game animal with an arrow I made completely from scratch with nothing modern. I don't necessarily need to gather everything myself as trading is well established in prehistoric times. But I do want to do it as naturally as possible.
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I don't add any vegetable matter to my mix, tried it without one time and found it didn't make any difference. I just use resin and beeswax. I have used resin and tallow, which would be what was used traditionally here, but find beeswax to work better
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A good authentic recipe would depend on where you live. If you live near the gulf coast or the west coast, asphaltum was the main ingredient and sometimes used by itself. If you live in the far north, or at high elevations, the primary ingredient was evergreen pitch with spruce being the best. Everywhere else usually has some sort of pine tree growing there, so that was used primarily, although I've seen some examples of other tree sap used after it has been boiled down a bit (I assume) to make it thicker.
If you're reproducing arrows from Central America or areas that traded with Indians from there, you can add some gum base, or natural latex or chicle, to the mix.
There were various things added to the resin or asphaltum to increase stiffness but the most common was powdered clay, fine sand, or ground up pigment of some sort. Sometimes different resins from different trees were combined and sometimes small amounts of asphaltum was thrown in as well, even in areas that were not close to the ocean. It seems like various ingredients were added to the "glue pot" on a continual basis in order to keep a good supply on hand.
The mix I use on most points is either hard pine rosin mixed with a little liquid pine tar or asphaltum powder mixed with gum base (basically roofing tar mixed with chewing gum). I've been adding pure talc powder (basically baby powder) to increase the volume and stiffness. If you dont want to buy talc powder, you can make a bunch of rock dust by rubbing two flat stones together. You can add quite a bit of powder to the mix and double the amount of glue that way.
Some tribes would mix fat with spruce resin, for example, but the fat has to be suet (the fat next to the kidneys) or some other very hard fat or the mix will be too brittle. It works the opposite of how you might think. Soft, runny fat actually makes the mix break up and shatter more easily when cool.
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Thanks for the info...very interesting! I’m hoping for my first stone point harvest with the arrows I’m building.
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Great info, Patrick. :OK