The various uses of pine resin.

[Mace]

highly flammable,adhesive which can be hardened into plastic. good for water proofing. creating torches and lamps. and many other cool uses.

Any experience using pine resin?

[natertot]

I have watched videos where it was used in the ways you have mentioned. Very feasible. I have only used it for fire purposes. Works pretty good. Get you some and play with it.

[Mace]

Ive actually played with it quite a bit. it also acts as an anodyne/painkiller and anesthetic because of the turpentine it contains i believe. useful stuff in my opinion. and collecting it correctly as ive been told doesnt have any significant affect over the trees health. though i usually dont scare the trees my self but rather collect the dry resin where they have already been scared. amazing stuff

[finallyME]

Whenever I tried lighting it with a ferro rod, no luck. It takes a long, sustained flame to light it. I guess beeswax is the same way.

[crashdive123]

Dried, shaved resin lights pretty easily with a spark. I have not had success getting a spark to take on the fresh resin.

[MrFixIt]

I walked out during my lunch break to a pine tree. I yelled very loudly. Guess I didn't scare it, no resin, no nothing...

[hunter63]

I walked out during my lunch break to a pine tree. I yelled very loudly. Guess I didn't scare it, no resin, no nothing...

So, you gotta scare them?... so they, resin themselves?.....
Wow, will the wonders never stop?

Bet it took 20 years to figure that out.

[Wise Old Owl]

Whenever I tried lighting it with a ferro rod, no luck. It takes a long, sustained flame to light it. I guess beeswax is the same way.

Its like anything else when you skip a step - perhaps you may be disappointed. Stick with the bird nest and carbon patch... then add the pine nodules.

[Wise Old Owl]

Pine Resin saved our ancestors.

Here is how, - Imagine for a moment 100,000 years ago the preferred hunting method was to get your meat by group hunting the mammals off a cliff. In short order forming a line and scaring the large beast to jump off. Well some did not jump they would turn and charge and kill us. Mammals biggest fear is not us its fires, and with a mob holding torches that have been dipped in pine pitch - gives the edge to make large mammals jump off cliffs and subsequently eaten.

[hunter63]

Around here we just run them into a swamp........No cliffs.

http://www.kenosha.org/wp-museum/exhibits-2/mammoths-kenosha-public-museum/

May have used torches, though.....

[kyratshooter]

Yea we used to hem them up in a narrow gully or in the salt marsh and kill them with big rocks.

We considered torches cheating.

http://parks.ky.gov/parks/historicsites/big-bone-lick/

[hunter63]

That's pretty cool....we actually went right past it on the way to Jamboree a couple of years ago.

[Rick]

My ancestors would simply send them an invitation to a party, get 'em liquored up and offer a "hot bath".

[primitiveskills]

We use pine resin from all of the Pinacea in our region, including balsam fir (a nearly clear liquid resin easily gathered from sap blisters), Spruce, and Hemlock. Here, the carpenter ant is our version of termites in the south. They don't "eat" the tree, but tunnel into it to create galleries to house their colony and raise their young. Pileated Woodpeckers love carpenter ants. They drill big holes in the sides of pines to eat them. The ants aren't bad. The formic acid they use to lay down their trails make them taste a little like blueberries. Anyway, we find resin wherever we find woodpecker holes. The hard and crumbly stuff we use for fire making or a lubricant for hand hold regarding friction fire. The water stuff works great as a survival epoxy resin. Mixed with powdery dry campfire ash as a catalyst, it turns into a black, flexible, and powerful glue. It is the big black strips on birch bark canoes. The seam glue between bark panels. Don't drip it on the tail gate of your new truck, because the paint will come off before the pine/ash glue does. We use this as a survival foot patch. Often the new apprentices will get foot punctures from not moving in the woods right or just plain being in a hurry. After thorough irrigation and a tannin soak (either a strong decoction of sweet fern or oak) to prevent infection, we put a pin resin and wood ash "patch" on the injury. Use just enough to cover the hole and any redness so you can both protect the injury and check for sepsis (increase in size of red/swollen area around the wound). Most of the time folks decide they don't want to walk out and are comfortable enough to remain for the experience.resin within the bark blisters contains several pharmacologically active terpenes. These chemicals are antiseptic and analgesic on wounds, blisters, burns, and other sores. In the north east the Abenaki, Algonquin, Cree, Iroquois, Ojibwa, and Penobscot were known Native to use members of the pinacea in this way. To access the resin for other medicinal uses Winter Buds are an effective tea used to clear the chest and treat colds and coughs. The inner bark is also saturated with the same antiseptic resin and can be used as a flexible bandage. Hope this helps.

[hunter63]

Many salves and ointments we use to day still contains "pine tar" and is used for all the reasons listed by PS above.
Hadn't heard of using ash...but did use mixed with charcoal.