Making fatwood tar. This tar extracted from Douglas fir fatwood is an incredible waterproofing material that I’ve taken to using on my arrows to keep them from coming apart in the rain. I first started using this stuff over nettles fibers, but now that I’ve been playing with deer sinew, it’s even more valuable as it is much more susceptible to moisture, and it rains a lot here. This sticky goo has been used for hundreds if not thousands of years to waterproof everything from tools and roofs to the British Navy, and it played a huge role in society before the age of petrochemicals.

If you’ve heard the terms “tarred and feathered” or “pitch black”; this is what they are referring to.
The basic idea here is to extract the resin from thin chunks of fatwood using the heat from a fire.

I should start out by saying that this would be much easier with something like a paint can with a fitted metal lid (be sure to poke a hole in it first); but I didn’t have one available and have had success using a big coffee can and aluminum foil, so that’s what I used today.

There is a similar method of extraction using two cans, with one set above the other with a hole in the bottom, but this one is a bit simpler and uses only a single can with a couple of tins in the bottom to keep the charred chunks out of the tar.

I buried the can by the creek and built a fire around it and left it to burn for a couple of hours while I wandered around with the pup. Unfortunately, the shifting fire busted the aluminum foil and I assumed that the entire batch had burned of. The can was full of smoldering ashes so I used some moss and a big flat rock to snuff it out and was surprised to find that I had several ounces of beautiful tar at the bottom.

I’ll share some more primitive extraction methods at some point, but this way is hard to beat for efficiency.
How long and hot you cook it will determine how it sets up when it’s cool. If you kept it relatively cool during the extraction, it will remain a viscous liquid, but if you allow it to boil off the volatile turpenes you end up with a material that sets up hard and isn’t tacky; which is what I prefer for waterproofing fibers on arrows, but the runny stuff can be great for applying to wood; especially if mixed with turpentine or alcohol prior to application.

This might seem like more work than its worth but the final product beats tree sap for my purposes. When heated it becomes very thin and runny, so I can apply a very light coat to waterproof fibers. It also makes amazing pitch glue when mixed with charcoal, but I prefer to save this stuff for waterproofing and use the sap from trees for glue.

The hatchet I used for this project was the excellent little Gibson Axe from ESEE knives. The foreshaft that gets covered with tar at the end of the video is red osier dogwood with a hand ground slate point, secured with pitch glue and deer sinew.