Making a Gourd Canteen or Water Bottle

[gryffynklm]

The inside must be sealed or it will mould and can leak from small cracks. We use Bottle gourds lined with brewers pitch for our 18th century reenacting unit. We follow the same instructions that Beowulf had outlined. We use brewers pitch because it has a higher melt point. By the way Brewers pitch has a residual taste that can last quite a while. There is also a synthetic brewers pitch that has no residual taste.

I have used bees wax to seal leather mugs. The bees wax doesn't leave much of a taste in the water.

[erunkiswldrnssurvival]

i make brewers pitch the secret to that is starting with pitch that is 100 or more years old. i find it on the realy big pines, it has a deep blood red color has a very high melting temp, and has a wierd piney smell and teste. never thought about lining a gourd with it i use it for tieing fish lures, making arrows, and other tools.

[gryffynklm]

http://jas-townsend.com/product_info...roducts_id=373Erunkis, excellent videos. Here is a link to the place i get y pitch from. There is also a video that explains how to re-pitch line a wooden canteen.

[ilinbg]

Hello there! I'm from Bulgaria and i was doing a little reseach on bottle gourds. I came up in this topic in your neat forum

Here are my questions. Do I need some special kind of wax, or i could use some wax from melting candles? And how much wax do I need for 1 round of sealing, considering my gourd can hold exactly 1.5 liters (please answer in ml, if the usage of candle wax is possible)?

Thanks in advance!

[crashdive123]

Ilinbg - there is some good info that I think answers that question. I'll see if I can find it. While I'm looking, how about stopping in at the Introduction section and tell us a bit about yourself. You can find it here. http://www.wilderness-survival.net/f...splay.php?f=14

[crashdive123]

Found em. Here are a couple of blog entries from one of our members that may help you.

http://www.wilderness-survival.net/forums/blog.php?b=84

http://www.wilderness-survival.net/forums/blog.php?b=83

[hunter63]

Interesting thread.

Have grown "dipper" gourds in the past, and always had a problem with some of them rotting before drying. Some dried just fine, some not.
I like the advice about wiping them with vinegar.
We use them at our mountain man Rendezvous.

As dippers, we didn't treat the insides with wax, we just let them dry after use.
I can see where waxing the insides would be required as they really don't have a chance to dry out as dippers do.
The inside of my oak water barrel was waxed when new, but that sorta broke up after a while. Still holds water when it's soaked and has water in it to keep it that way.
So does the wax hold up for long?

As far a growing flat ones, I had always though to tie 2 boards on each side of a small round one and let it grow and flatten out. Haven't tried it yet, though.

DW makes a lot of craft stuff out of them, painting, cutting, lacing the cut outs etc.