Pinion pine pitch

[MaxTheKnife]

Thanks for understanding, you guys. I think what happened was that my supplier got a good feel for the way I operate by lurking for a good while and he underestimated your response to this pitch offer. I think he was counting on me dragging my feet and performing in my famous slow way and was planning ahead to fill orders for his current pitch picking efforts. He probably figured I'd be able to move a few pounds here and there for him and that he had plenty of time to get more pitch stockpiled before the orders really started rolling in. It will all work out fine and everybody that ordered pitch will get plenty. I'll just do my best to make it fair for everyone.

Also, what I've decided to do about the shipping is to go ahead and ship each package out and then email the total to each person. That just makes it easier for me and that way everybody will get their pitch the quickest way possible. I'll post again when I get the pitch and then you can start looking for an email from me. Personal checks will be fine. No sense going to any extra trouble. I don't have an account with PayPal. And there you have it.

[prizzim]

Good deal, Max. I'll be lookin' at my email.

[Lawrence Kemp]

Thanks Max!

[MaxTheKnife]

No problemo.

[MaxTheKnife]

Just a quick update.

My supplier shipped a 5 gallon bucket full of pitch to me yesterday and will ship another one early next week if he can find enough pitch. That's a total of approximately 60 pounds of pitch, altogether. I'll go ahead and start packing and shipping when I get the first bucket. That's the plan for now anyway. I'll fill the orders in the order they came in just to make it fair.

So, there will be no need to adjust your order unless you decided that you really don't need 5 pounds after all. I'll ship your original order amount unless you tell me otherwise. The price is set at $5/lb, as agreed. Chris, if you want to pay $6/lb for the full 5 pounds I'm sure Mr. Supplier would appreciate it. But you don't have to. Fair is fair and it appears everything will work out.

Now, there's another way to look at this. I can wait until I get the second bucket so there won't be any hitches in our get-a-long. That makes the most sense to me and will insure that no one has to wait an unnecessarily long time to get their pitch. I'll just pack up the smallest orders first and get them ready to ship in order to save time. Packaging will be very simple. Plain old zip-lock bags wrapped with fiber tape and slipped into a tyvek envelope at the post office. I'm open for opinions or suggestions about how to handle the week delay between buckets. If no one chimes in I'll figure you agree with me and think you have good sense!

Now a few words about the quality of this pitch. This will be raw, unrefined pitch of the hard nodule variety. It will have bits of bark and other junk in it because it's picked up off the ground or chopped off of the bark of the tree with a machete. It has been sorted and washed at least twice. Sometimes more, depending on whos helping him. That's alot of trouble to go through when it's only bringing in $5/lb, wouldn't you say? We are getting one heck of a deal from the sweat of this mans brow. He walks an average of 5 miles a day while picking pitch and looks at literally thousands of trees on all sides while searching. He's doing that just for us, fellows. He's currently working on a short story to share with us so we know what is involved with picking pitch. I'm looking forward to reading it.

That was kind of a long update, but there you have it.

[Chuck Burrows]

Max - let me know what the shipping will cost and I'll send a check for that plus 3 lbs at $6.00 a pound - thats a good price and is well within my means - no sense in shorting this guy.

[Kevin Hagan]

Wow!! Man that was a great exchange. That's why I love this place. One man helps another, who helps another who helps another...like a snowball of good will! Then when something goes wrong, like the supplier can't come up with enough to fill the order, and everyone goes out of their way to make it ok for everyone! I Love You Guys!

Kevin

[MaxTheKnife]

There's alot of good folks on this forum. No denying that. I've already had one person who's ordering pitch to donate an edged gift to Mr. Supplier and I have plans to gift him with a few things he described that he needed as well. One good turn deserves another, I always say. And what goes around, comes around. I know Mr. Supplier will have a hard time accepting gifts but he'll just have to get over it. He he.

[MongoForge]

I seen Pinon soap somewhere on the net today
And Pinon scented candles to i think?

[DiamondG Knives]

Amen to the Brotherhood of this forum!
Some fine folks here!

Max, cant wait till we can get togather!
Pack a bag, it may take us a couple of days to ge it all done!!!

HEHE!

God Bless

Mike

[MaxTheKnife]

Oh man, that sounds good Mike. I just forged up my last big hunk of cable damascus and it had a big nasty occlusion in it. I ground and ground and ground on that blade...... until there almost wasn't enough to be called a blade anymore. But it will work fine for another knife for me. I don't have near enough of my own knives around here. I guess that's a good thing when I have to keep one once in a while! But I gotta tell you, it's a sorry way to get knives!!! Heeeeeeeee haaaaawwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lawrence Kemp]

Sounds good to me Max! I'll go on the assumption of 5lbs., and the checks in the mail!

[MaxTheKnife]

Well, Fed-Ex just brought the first bucket of pitch. I emailed a pic to Chuck to post just so you could get an idea of what we're dealing with. I'll wait till he posts it and then make a few more comments. I don't have time right now anyway. More later.

[Chris Daigle]

Max, can you describe the process needed to go through to make this "rough pitch" usable? I'm really not familiar with it.

If you have any extra, please let me know and I'd like to order some.

Many thanks,
Chris

[Chuck Burrows]

Max sent these pics - before and after shots






Chris you just need to cook it for a bit - once melted skim off the dross and pour the rest into some kind of mold (old yogurt containers work great - just cut away the plastic when you need some.) In fact if use Tai's method you fit the tang tight - stick tang - warm up the tang and just rub the hard wax along the tang - asseble IMMEDIATELY.
Once it is cold and hard test the consistency by pressing a finger tip against - if it feels a bit mushy/soft cook it down for a while longer - this will get rid of excess moisture.
I use an old crockpot to melt mine in as there is no open flame - pitch is HIGHLY flammable when melting it. Alsowhen hot it's like Cajun napalm (aka roux) - sticks to anything and burns like crazy so I usually wear a long sleeve shirt and gloves are not a bad idea either.