[Bordermarch] Tacky wax success

[Lathrop, Dave]

Salutations unto Bordermarch,

My tacky wax experiment was a success!
Last night I use one of those portable electric burners to heat my collection of pine pitch nodules. I placed them into a coffee can and watched as a low heat turned them into some of the stickiest goop I'd ever seen. It took about 5 minutes to melt it all down.
All of the pine bark and sawdust that was stuck in the pine pitch floated to the top of the solution. I removed as much as I could, but could not easily get all of it out of the can.
The next step was to make sure most of the terpenes had been removed from the liquid pine pitch. Once the odor of turpentine that was emanating from the can became barely perceptible I decided it was time to add the wax.
I  grabbed a small glob of the toilet bowl wax and added it to the molten rosin, stirring to get the mixture consistent. The wax easily melted into the mix, and within a minute or two I was ready to pour the mixture into small cups for cooling.
The rest of the bark and sawdust stayed in the can as I poured, thereby making my liquid tacky wax free of any contaminants.
The liquid wax solidified in about twenty minutes, and retained the color of a caramel candy.
I took an unfinished bowstring from the rack and applied some of my tacky wax to the loose strands. The wax had the consistency of a hard lip-balm, but was much stickier. The strands stuck together better than they had when using a straight wax.
I braided the waxed bowstring  using the Flemish braiding technique, and it came out very well indeed.

My wax is good , but it could be better; it's got a little too much oil in it. The next batch will have more rosin in it for more tackiness, and I'll cook it longer to reduce the oil content, and make the cooled wax a  little harder.

HE Santiago