Pine Pitch Glue from Bald Cypress??

**Jessie764** · 10-05-2014, 04:27 PM

Hey guys, I was wanting to make some pine Pitch Glue however I live in South Louisiana about an hour and a half east of New Orleans and Pine trees don't grow naturally down here. So I was wandering if the same glue can be made using Bald Cypress and if not do you know of any other kind of trees that do work other than pines. Thanks (I searched and haven't found anything but if you know a good site that has info on all the different resins and tars that can be made from trees I wouldn't mind reading through it)

**hunter63** · 10-05-2014, 04:53 PM

Hunter63 saying Hey and Welcome.....From Wisconsin.
There is an introduction section at:

http://www.wilderness-survival.net/f...-Introductions

DD/SIL/GS live in north west Louisiana, Shreveport area....and they live in a cleared out yellow pine plantation.
Their deer lease is also a plantation.
I hunt there most every year.

Quick Google search turned up this......

http://www.bellarmine.edu/faculty/dr...aldcypress.asp

**Batch** · 10-05-2014, 11:30 PM

I have never heard of anyone using the resin for glue.

The wood is very rot resistant and has been used for building all sorts of things including hollowed out logs for early pluming. The Seminoles made dugout canoes out of cypress. People used cypress for shingles on their house and they were almost as good as red cedar.

I have burned cypress. But, I don't seek it out and have always seen it rated as a mediocre firewood. The weekend before last though we had some younger guys in their early 20's camping in a camp near us. I watched them walk out toward the grade into another camp and they were shining lights and I figured they were some more of these new survivalist type guys. They stopped in to say high on the way back to their camp. I saw they had some cypress and they said that they would look for dormant or dead cypress and shake the tree and the whole top would fall down and they would get all the wood they needed for the night from them.

Here is an excerpt from an ethnobotany document I found on line. I will link the source if anyone is interested. Or you could just copy and paste the excerpt and I am sure you will find the source.

The leaves and seeds of Taxodium have been used for
treatment of malaria and liver diseases [21]. The seeds of Taxodium have been reported to possess
antitumor activities [22, 23]. Several parts of Montezuma cypress were used by the Aztecs; in
particular, the gummy resin that can be ob- tained from a cut tree or its burned wood was used
as a medicine. Pieces of the burned bark were placed directly on sores, burns and ulcerations of
the skin. In addition, chest pains could be treated and potentially cured by inhaling the smoke
from burning wood and branches. Currently, the bark, branches, leaves and cones of this tree are
used to create in- fusions or ointments for the treatment of wounds, gout, car- diac diseases,
hemorrhoids, ulcers and varices, to relieve rheumatic pain, or as antispasmodics for the treatment
of diarrhea and bronchial problems [3, 4]. Martínez reported that resinous parts of the
leaves and cones may effectively treat herpes and leg tumors and reduce inflammation and
rapidly resolve articular diseases [24]. Infusions of the leaves have also been reported as
hypoglycemic [25]. The only pub- lished pharmacological study on this species detailed a
vasorelaxant effect of the aqueous extract from the aerial part of the tree [26]. The recorded
treatment effects of the me- dicinal products derived from the Taxodium taxa have not been
further verified by additional pharmacological or con-
trolled clinical studies.

Also, looking at a cypress dome or slough, the deepest water will hold the tallest trees.