So I finally got round to molesting some pine trees...

[Evil Lurker]

A while back I posted about how it might be possible to obtain flux from pine trees. Well after chopping down a few saplings, collecting a little bit of sap, dissolving in alcohol, filtering it off and then heating said sap in an oven to 250F to drive off the alcohol I was left with about ~5ml of some water clear slightly yellow very sticky rosin. And, after a few quick test runs I'm happy to say the rosin, while not exactly "no clean" works just as good or better than the stuff Rat Shack used to sell in the tubs and the residue is a whole lot easier to clean up. Needless to say I have yet to get the entire process refined, but basically what I have learned is that if you wanna milk a pine tree, you gotta cover the wound (or in my case, the stumps) as the sap will quickly dry and turn into some hard white chunky crap that is impossible to scrap off and collect. Also when heating it up to drive off the alcohol, enough sap to fill up about two soda bottle caps is capable of making your house smell like a pine tree exploded in it when driving off the alcohol. Oh and don't use anything that you are not prepared to throw away for an evaporation dish. Me, I used an aluminum foil lined tunafish can.

I think later on this afternoon I'm gonna chop down 10-15 more saplings and try and get some pictures of the process... all goes well I should have enough rosin to last me quite some time.

[tautech]

 
Looking forward to your step by step guide. 

[electr_peter]

Another 
Write more on the process details and how much rosin you can get. Post some pictures as well - topic is very interesting.

"Flux is gone", - says Evil Lurker before taking an axe...

[Fsck]

 
I'm also curious about how much residue is actually filtered off.

[tautech]

BTW
I could lend you my 3120 if you need it.


Na, not me , just some image from the net.

[zapta]

Where do you get pine trees?  I just checked Digikey and Mouser and they don't have any.

[Aodhan145]

Where do you get pine trees?  I just checked Digikey and Mouser and they don't have any.

 

[Thor-Arne]

I'm sure you can order some from china.

[Vgkid]

  I'll join
post up some pics.

[Evil Lurker]

Ok so I went out and lopped down another tree.. this is what I am cutting, the common loblolly pine (I think), unscientific name Pinus fluxus.



The idea was to cut the top off leaving a portion of trunk, so that in theory more sap will rise from the roots. Immediately after cutting you can start to see little beads of sap rising (although I don't know if they can be seen in the picture, only looked at the thumbnail on my PC).



Since the sap likes to dry out, the next step is to bag them up. I went with some ziplocs because they were handy and rigid enough to stand up off the cuts, plus they are clear so you can see what is going on inside them.



Now time to hurry up and wait till in the morning when I can go out and see how much sap has flown over the night.

[tautech]

For the "head" of the pine, while the branches are still connected, they'll continue "sucking" sap upwards.
Suggest you limb, and invert sections of the log, bagging the smaller(head) end.
Displacement of the sap was once considered crucial to "seasoning" timber, logs were even tethered "butts' upstream in a river to assist sap displacement.
One might even consider some homebuilt connection of water pressure to the butt to speed the process.
Water comtamination of the resin shouldn't be a problem as it will boil off in the refining process.

[free_electron]

TREESLAYER ! Rosin is murder !

[GreyWoolfe]

I'm sure you can order some from china.

Yeah, but it will either be mulch, dried out w/o rosin, or imitation pine(Douglas Fir, Juniper).  Wait, Juniper berries flavor gin.  OK, that could be a good substitute for for EE's who are  moonshiners making bathtub gin on the side.

[ozwolf]

Really? Do you have to cut the tree(s) down?

Why not tap the tree like Canadians do for Maple Syrup!  Tree gets to live on and provide more sap for next year.

Three seconds on Google found this http://www.wikihow.com/Tap-a-Pine-Tree.

Geez

[T3sl4co1l]

Heheh yeah, the turpentine is still in there so you ideally should distill it to separate the liquid fractions.  Should be no problem for a back-woods 'shiner like yourself?  Oh wait...

The moderately volatile acids are probably the most valuable part of the rosin, as flux goes.  With use, that part evaporates, leaving you with crusty deposits.

Want to say there's also something about, say, clarifying it with who knows what additives, "activating" it with the help of other acids (or hydrolysis, if esters are present), or etc.  But if it works fine as-is, who cares.

Tim

[zapta]

Really? Do you have to cut the tree(s) down?

Hopefully he will not try next to make carbon resistors from his puppies.

[ozwolf]

Really? Do you have to cut the tree(s) down?

Hopefully he will not try next to make carbon resistors from his puppies.

I'll give him credit for naming the thread subject correctly...

[T3sl4co1l]

I'll give him credit for naming the thread subject correctly...

Actually to be fair about that, no...

...He didn't drill a hole into the trunk, so...

   

 

Tim

[tautech]

Really? Do you have to cut the tree(s) down?

Why not tap the tree like Canadians do for Maple Syrup!  Tree gets to live on and provide more sap for next year.

Three seconds on Google found this http://www.wikihow.com/Tap-a-Pine-Tree.

Geez

Everybody has a differing view on this.....

Here in NZ some of our pristine remote areas are being invaded by pines, gangs of guys with chainsaws are dropped in with choppers to do battle with the wilding pines.

But other varieties like Radiata are the backbone of our lumber industry, most of which is exported.

[Evil Lurker]

For what it is worth the trees that I am cutting are basically scrub overgrowth in a neglected corner of a pasture that used to be a cattle corral. The trees are stunted, some are showing signs of a pine beetle infestation, and they will never be useful for lumber (or for that matter pulpwood) and simply need to be cleared out anyway so I can use the space for something more productive, like a corral.  I'm also not that interested in investing much effort into sap collection either as there are probably 50+ similar sized trees that need to be taken down nor am I gung ho about wading through briars and ticks to get to them. I do like the idea bout turning the tops upside down, but since I don't have a front end loader on my tractor it ain't gonna happen. Might take a ladder out there though and simply chop off all the limbs and see how much I can get out the stubs though.

[nanofrog]

...some are showing signs of a pine beetle infestation...

Perhaps cutting them down and burning them might be a more appropriate (keep them from spreading to healthy trees you want to keep)?   

[c4757p]

Really? Do you have to cut the tree(s) down?

...

Geez

Oh, no! He cut down a tree! Whatever will we do? It's not like trees grow and reproduce, or anything silly like that...

[zapta]

Oh, no! He cut down a tree! Whatever will we do? It's not like trees grow and reproduce, or anything silly like that...

People also grow and reproduce.  Rethink your argument.

[c4757p]

Oh, no! He cut down a tree! Whatever will we do? It's not like trees grow and reproduce, or anything silly like that...

People also grow and reproduce.  Rethink your argument.

Are you bloody kidding me? We special-case people because they're, well, people. Hence why it's not considered murder to kill an animal.

Trees aren't intelligent and don't contribute to society, they're a resource. One tree is equivalent to another, there's nothing special about an individual tree.

[miguelvp]

It´s a sapling, and pine trees are really aggressive trees and deplete ground nutrients faster than say oak.

So actually cutting it down might be beneficial to other plants that couldn´t grow because of the pine tree.