Anyone make their own pine tar?

Pine tar has been used as a wood finish in Scandinavian countries for quite some time. It is not too popular here in the states and a gallon of good stuff ( imported from Finland I believe is pricey at about $40 a gallon). I have worked with it before on a gun stock project or two   Like linseed or boiled linseed oil it is slow to dry
I have watched several videos on how to make it and it does not seem like its rocket science, it's similar to the bio char technique . There is a product called Japan drier that wood workers add to clear type finishes to speed up the drying process and was wondering if anyone here had ever tried adding it to pine tar. It is a handsome looking finish when done. Even more handsome when used in conjunction with a char finish .  They say the roots of a pine tree have the highest level of tar in them and where I'm heading , pine tree roots are very accessible    Who knows, I even had a thought about making it and perhaps selling it. Lol.  I'd like to hear from anyone who has experience with the stuff.  Larry

Hi,

this site has a method i have not before seen ( haven't seen many, but i know they used to make tar with big piles of tarry wood somehow burning very slowly from under), and it seems quite well working; http://www.kotinet.com/jarmo.raudaskoski/tervanpoltto.htm ... google's translation for the page is,, well, good try..
From that one barrelful of tarry wood they get quite nice amounts of pine tar,, three different grades of quality.

Hello and welcome, the only reason I know of pine tar is my interest in history, specially from Scandinavian countries where this was used from Skiing gear to home steads.  It is an amazing product, made very simply and lasts a pretty long time in all aspects of its use. I study Finnish culture, history and more specially the early WWII era.   While pine tar is not the official rifle stock preservative. I am very sure , soldiers in the field, used to " brew " it up for their skis and gun stocks
( many may say no, in a smaller army, you go back to your roots).  There are many great utube videos on making this. It is very expensive to purchase here stateside . It is a wonderful product when done.  Please post here if you have had any experiences with it.  There are many people on this forum who would love to hear from you.   Larry.  One question I do have? I have been told the roots are the best source for pine tar , what are your thoughts on this???

Hi, thanks,

yes it is product with many uses, and only now i read a bit more about its uses from the site to which the instruction-page linked.
It seems there could be some good info for you too but oh my the quality of google translate seems to be quite bad.. but maybe with good will and imagination or with some help of proper dictionary its possible to get the point in the sentences anyway.
Interesting that you study Finnish culture,, where do you study it?  
For sure yeah the soldiers could very well have made tar in the forests as it used to be much commonly known skill before, to make tar.

Old saying in Finland says that "ellei sauna, viina ja terva auta, tauti on kuolemaksi"-> "if sauna, alcohol and tar does not help, the sickness is going to lead to death".
This short saying means practically that in the old times, pine tar - diluted to alcohol and mixed with water, then thrown on the sauna-stones was used as very common and effective medicine for many kinds of sicknesses,, together for sure with plants collected from nature and set into sauna in water to purify and also to "hitting" the patient with them while bathing in hot steam. Mostly small branches of birch were used, but different plants have different properties...

I haven't used tar so much in sauna (or for buildings, boats etc either), but since I was child, we always used to have a jar of honey, into which small amount of tar has been mixed and this honey&tar is super medicine to generally enhance the immunity.
If one is sensitive to perceive the bio-energy fields in nature and around living things, it can be clearly seen/perceived that the field of bio-energy the honey has, multiplies greatly when mixing a little bit of tar into it.  I think honey has such effect to many medicines,, like if you mix for example ginger into honey (or a bit of honey to strong ginger tea), the properties of ginger get also stronger and so on..

Jukka,I had not heard of the " sauna,alcohol and pine tar" remedy before. My interest in the history of your country strems from my love for vintage long guns. That started me reading about Finnish history in the WWII era and then backwards. I never studied formally, I guess I'd call myself " self taught" . As far as honey? I'm a huge fan of honey and I will claim the right to call myself a bee keeper some day. I can see where a honey
And tar mixture would make a fine remedy. I used to chew pine  sap/resin when I was a kid. I did find several Utube videos on manufacturing pine tar.  I will work on a link later today (I've never added a link here on this forum before)

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