Playing with fire is always fun.  Today I experimented with torches.  I wanted to try out different fuel types and ended up using pine pitch and tallow.  I had a bunch of pitch left over from previous projects.  I also got a bunch of fat that I rendered into tallow from the woodchuck I “sampled” a few weeks ago and used for torch fuel.  For the torches, I used the seed head from the cattail stalk and the same with common mullein stalks.  I made 4 torches total: 2 cattail torches – 1 with tallow and 1 with pitch, and 2 mullein torches – also with pine and tallow.

The tallow, when warmed, easily absorbed into the cattail fluff and I assumed that the cattail would act like a wick in a candle and burn.  Boy, was I disppointed.  I couldn’t get the cattail with either fuel type to light easily and when they did, they immediately went out when removed from the heat.  The mullein, on the other hand, worked well.  But, again, I was disappointed, this time with the quality of burn.  Both mullein stalks (with tallow and pine pitch) burned, but not like I am used to seeing on TV – with a large flame throwing out loads of light.  They burned more like over-sized candles.  Both fuel types had a tendency to drip (pine) or run (tallow) down the stalks while burning.  And both burned down in about 20 minutes.  Not too bad a burn time, I’d say.  Lastly, the tallow torch didn’t smell all that great and lingered on the clothes.  The pine pitch, on the other hand, had a nice piney smell to it.

So, in closing, I wouldn’t want to use either of these by holding in my bare hand and walking through the woods.  But they could be practically used around camp to supplement the light from the campfire if poked into the ground in a convenient location.  Still, I’d like to experiment some more with different torch methods and compare the results.

What kind of results have you had with torches?  Please share your experiences.

UPDATE: During my first attempt with torches, I used common cattail (Typha latifolia) and I couldn’t get that to light.  Today, however, I did have some success using narrow-leaved cattail (T. angustifolia).  I soaked seed head in warm tallow and it burned for about 15 minutes or so.  I don’t know what the difference was, perhaps the smaller size of the heads, but it seems that the narrow-leaved cattail will work for a torch/candle.

Popularity: 23%

Hemp Hill (top) & Corner Notch

There is nothing worse than putting a lot of time and energy into a point only to mess things up at the very end.  I was putting in the last notch when my cone flake took out the ear.  I was hoping to make something resembling a Hemp Hill.  The finished product is still acceptable and functional but the lack of symmetry obviously reduces some of the aesthetic qualities.  The second projectile is a simple corner-notched point.  And sticking with the “I hate notching” theme, I had to punch in one of the notches with indirect percussion because I had a hard time driving through the limestone inclusions using  pressure alone.  I don’t usually like to use indirect, but in this case it seemed to work out OK.

Popularity: 15%

I just wanted to state for the record that I am a regular visitor to Lithic Casting Lab as it is a wonderful resource for the flint knapper. Most notable in my opinion are the casts they make of authentic stone age artifacts that have been collected the world over. When you are trying to replicate a particular point, nothing beats holding the actual piece in your hands to study and appreciate. And if you can’t obtain that point for examination, the next best thing is to get your hands on an exact replica that has been cast from the genuine article. And that is one thing that Pete Bostrom of Lithic Casting Lab specializes in and does better than anybody else. So, I must confess that I felt a little sleezy after realizing that my domain name closely resembles theirs. In all honesty, I’ve always referred to LCL (in my mind and in conversation) in an abbreviated fashion as Lithic Casting. I had completely forgotten that the Lab-portion of their name had always been included at the end. So, when I was trying to come up with a name to express what my blog would be about (the learning and application of stone-age / primitive technology), the name Lithic Labs felt good and seemed to meet that criteria nicey; Lithic Casting Lab never even entered my mind. Well, I still feel a little weird about it, but it was an honest mistake and what is done, is done. I don’t know Pete personally, but I hope he won’t harbor any ill feelings toward Lithic Labs or myself for using a name that is so similar to theirs. Mea Culpa!

Popularity: 9%

I recently acquired a woodchuck that was trapped out of a farmer’s soy bean field. Often in agricultural settings a nuisance animal like a woodchuck would be euthanized then disposed of. Farmers have little tolerance for woodchucks because of the damage they cause to crops. Since I like to experiment with different types of wild foods, I took advantage of this culinary opportunity to sample ’sub-terranian whistle pig.’

In his book Stalking The Wild Asparagus, Euell Gibbons writes mostly about foraging for plant foods. However, he briefly covers some basic preparatory guidelines and recipes for some of the more unconventional game species including fish, frog, snapping turtle, raccoon, opossum, etc. He also provides a small section on woodchuck that I chose follow. I’ll spare you the details involved with the processing of the animal other than to say that I used a couple of waste flakes left over from flint knapping to skin and eviscerate it. They worked well initially but quickly dulled when removing the feet & head due to contact with bone. The only other difficulty I had was locating the scent glands that are supposed to be removed prior to cooking. Apparently two of them should have been found under each forearm and the other two at the small of the back, presumably the anal glands. I searched thoroughly but just couldn’t find any of them and assume they were obscured by a thick layer of subcutaneous fat and probably came off with the hide during the skinning process. The carcass was then soaked for 24 hours in a bryne-like solution of vinegar and salt, after which the cooking process began as described by Euell.

Now, bear in mind that part of the intention behind preparing the woodchuck in this manner was to make the transition to straight woodchuck a little easier to swallow. However, I don’t feel that the time and energy involved was worth the trouble. It would have been a lot simpler to just roast it on a spit over an open fire. The meal as a whole was acceptable, but there was so much done to it during the preparation that any residual taste of woodchuck that may have remained was completely overpowered by everything else that went into it. A little disappointed? Yes! But now I can say I’ve tried woodchuck and eating it again in the future will be a lot easier.

Popularity: 6%

I’ve always wanted to make and experiment with bolas. I spent some time this weekend putting together a few. I especially wanted to try using different materials with varying handle designs. I read through some of the resources I had in my personal library and was disappointed to find that many of the descriptions for them were lacking detail. I did find some excellent information here at www.flight-toys.com. However, in all fairness to the to the other authors, there is not a lot of technical difficulty to them and the concept is relatively simple. I just enjoy having access to pictures or more detailed descriptions of actual artifacts or replicas for reference. So, for starters, I went with bare bones simple. I just cut a limb into four similar length segments, grooved them on one end, and fastened one weight to each end of two long pieces of 550 paracord. The cords were then connected in the middle to a wooden handle. The handle was unnecessary, but as I stated earlier, I wanted to experiment with different handle styles and wanted an excuse to try cutting a hole through a stick as described in the book Bushcraft by Mors Kochanski’s.

The next bola design was pretty simple. I just took an old t-shirt that was in the rag cupboard and cut off some strips to twist into cord. Then I cut some squares from the fabric and filled these with wet sand. I tied everything together and knotted the free end of the cords for a handle. I didn’t throw either style bola very much, but found this style of grip more comfortable and natural to use.

For the final style I decided to get a little more elaborate. I went with a weight incorporated into a monkey-fist knot. I chose to use marbles as my weight for aesthetic reasons because they are perfectly round and result in a prettier, more uniform looking knot. In reality, one would use a round river cobble instead. Although neat looking, this method was the most time consuming and used up a lot of cord. Also, the marbles were not heavy enough for use on anything larger than a song bird. I twisted the middle portions of the cord into a loop to form the handle. Speaking from my limited experience, I found this style of handle to be the least comfortable and least accurate to throw. Anyway, the time I spent throwing these things around was fun – especially when the weights wrap around your target. However, for having such a wide spread, I was very surprised at how often I missed my target. The good news is that in open country with nothing between you and your quarry, if your throw should falls short, you still have a chance at connecting after the rebound off the ground.

Popularity: 25%