# Pine Tar



## Redux (Oct 27, 2018)

I was wondering if anyone here has utilized pine tar as an alternative to stains for treating and coloring exterior wood siding. The product in question can be found at the two following links. I’m looking for review and opinion from anyone that may have used the products or something similar.

https://www.auson.se/en/pine-tar-vitriol

https://www.earthandflax.com/authentic-pine-tar


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## kmp (Jan 30, 2011)

Back when cross country ski's were made out of wood I used pine tar to seal the bottoms. Not really what you asked but i thought it was funny.


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## Fman (Aug 20, 2011)

Alchemy Redux said:


> I was wondering if anyone here has utilized pine tar as an alternative to stains for treating and coloring exterior wood siding. The product in question can be found at the two following links. I’m looking for review and opinion from anyone that may have used the products or something similar.
> 
> https://www.auson.se/en/pine-tar-vitriol
> 
> https://www.earthandflax.com/authentic-pine-tar


I think of pine tar and I think of baseball and George Brett wanting to kill the umpire for disallowing a home run because he had "too much" pine tar on his bat. And Yadi Molina putting it on his chest protector and looking all over for a dropped ball, not realizing it was stuck to him! I guess this doesn't help! I just thought it'd be sticky as all get out.


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## Redux (Oct 27, 2018)

I did order some up earlier to play around with and make some mock-ups. At least I know it has other uses in the event it doesn’t serve my needs...I’m going to see if I can find the George Brett/Yadi Molina video, the second one sounding pretty hilarious.


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## cocomonkeynuts (Apr 14, 2017)

Alchemy Redux said:


> I did order some up earlier to play around with and make some mock-ups. At least I know it has other uses in the event it doesn’t serve my needs...I’m going to see if I can find the George Brett/Yadi Molina video, the second one sounding pretty hilarious.



Never used it my self but have seen guys make it bushcraft and use it on their remote log homes.


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## Redux (Oct 27, 2018)

cocomonkeynuts said:


> Never used it my self but have seen guys make it bushcraft and use it on their remote log homes.


The stuff wreaks to high holy hell. I had a client wanting to provide some protection and a little gray character to a new Baltic birch outdoor console table, deciding to treat it with iron vitriol followed by the iron vitriol pine tar. When finishing it on my back porch, my neighbor two houses down thought that there was a fire, probing the neighborhood for the source of the charred wood smell. When finished, I ended up transporting the table in the backseat of of my pickup truck, the client insisting on taking me to the emergency room after being overcome by the smell!

I ended up having to chemically extract the pine tar the best I could and sand down the piece, encapsulating it with a couple of coats of 024, 2 coats of alkyd satin, followed by 4 coats of polycarbonate clear...and it still stinks!
The client decided to buy a new table because the smell just won’t go away.

I wouldn’t recommend it, not even for cross county skis!


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## Brushman4 (Oct 18, 2014)

Alchemy Redux said:


> I did order some up earlier to play around with and make some mock-ups. At least I know it has other uses in the event it doesn’t serve my needs...I’m going to see if I can find the George Brett/Yadi Molina video, the second one sounding pretty hilarious.


Pine tar also known as pitch is a great preservative of wood, it's been used for centuries on wooden boats to prevent leaking and rot. https://maritime.org/conf/conf-kaye-tar.htm

A contractor I worked for did a lot of work for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (think sewer system) and they used a similar product, coal tar epoxy on a lot of structural and piping. It looks like a lot of states have been banning its use.


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## Holland (Feb 18, 2011)

I have seen pine tar (pitch) used on the bottom of new, wood lawn furniture prior to staining. Makes sense, as the bottoms would last longer, but they looked funny, like they were wearing socks.

The person who did this soaked them overnight, and the end grain pulled the pitch into the wood, and sealed the bottoms of the legs.

Not worth the effort, personally.


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## Redux (Oct 27, 2018)

I originally purchased the pine tar as an architecturally correct finish for siding on Scandinavian themed homes. After doing a bit of research on it, I discovered it has no preservative properties other than water repellency, and was scheduled to be removed from the EU markets as a preservative, having no biocidal or mildewcidal/algicidal properties. It has however been determined that it does preserve the wood to a great degree by repelling water and has since been allowed to remain on the EU market as a preservative. I utilized my client’s table as the sacrificial guinea pig to see how it would perform. Although it did have a nice look to it, the smell was too overwhelming..a definite deal breaker. I could see neighbors putting up a stink over the stink if used for anything other than a “remote” log cabin as Coco mentioned. I’ve since referred to pine tar as liquid smoke in a can.


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## CApainter (Jun 29, 2007)

Brushman4 said:


> Pine tar also known as pitch is a great preservative of wood, it's been used for centuries on wooden boats to prevent leaking and rot. https://maritime.org/conf/conf-kaye-tar.htm
> 
> A contractor I worked for did a lot of work for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (think sewer system) and they used a similar product, coal tar epoxy on a lot of structural and piping. It looks like a lot of states have been banning its use.


I've blasted and sprayed plenty of col-tar. Nasty stuff. The dust from abrasive blasting will give you a terrible burning rash.

To me, it smells like creosote. Is that the same smell as pine tar?


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## cocomonkeynuts (Apr 14, 2017)

Alchemy Redux said:


> I originally purchased the pine tar as an architecturally correct finish for siding on Scandinavian themed homes. After doing a bit of research on it, I discovered it has no preservative properties other than water repellency, and was scheduled to be removed from the EU markets as a preservative, *having no biocidal or mildewcidal/algicidal properties.* It has however been determined that it does preserve the wood to a great degree by repelling water and has since been allowed to remain on the EU market as a preservative. I utilized my client’s table as the sacrificial guinea pig to see how it would perform. Although it did have a nice look to it, the smell was too overwhelming..a definite deal breaker. I could see neighbors putting up a stink over the stink if used for anything other than a “remote” log cabin as Coco mentioned. I’ve since referred to pine tar as liquid smoke in a can.



You could probably pretreat the siding with a borate solution.


That cabin I mentioned was someone harvesting the logs and making pine tar on site.


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## APPNW (Jul 9, 2019)

Just ordered some of this stuff to finish this display/end table. What i bought is already mixed with linseed though. Im hoping to sell it at a hippy trade show so im trying to keep it as natural as possible. Sorry if the picture is sidewase.


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## Redux (Oct 27, 2018)

APPNW said:


> Just ordered some of this stuff to finish this display/end table. What i bought is already mixed with linseed though. Im hoping to sell it at a hippy trade show so im trying to keep it as natural as possible. Sorry if the picture is sidewase.


Great looking table!

I’ve done quite a bit of live edge finishing, even having done a couple of Nakashima commissions. I utilize raw tung oil cut with mineral spirits, melting grated beeswax into the oil, warming it up in a hot water bath to melt the wax. I saturate & impregnate the wood with the oil-beeswax mix, the beeswax providing UV protection. The tung oil if applying multiple coats provides decent water resistance and doesn’t yellow like linseed oil. The raw tung oil does take a long time to dry..if drying time is a concern I use lightly polymerized tung oil instead..it’s a bit difficult removing the excess wax from the live edge though..

I’ve never used it outdoors as a finish, yet one of my very knowledgeable lifelong career wood finishers who has origins in Argentina has utilized the beeswax & beeswax oil mixtures to protect exterior wood, the technique being pretty common in Argentina...so I’ve been told. I’m wondering how it would work..


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## APPNW (Jul 9, 2019)

Err sideways too... guess i forgot how to spell.

I will have to try the tung and beeswax combo. Im quite familiar with coating things in beeswax and ive got a lot of burl slabs to play with not to mention pallet bricks of beeswax that still smell like the fields they came from.
I am time constrained this time so im gonna stick to the pine tar mix.
The knots in the piece have all been drilled out. They will get orgone energy centers in them and filled with glow in the dark epoxy. 
The yellowing is encouraged here since the white pine has a lot of it anyhow.


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## cocomonkeynuts (Apr 14, 2017)

APPNW said:


> Err sideways too... guess i forgot how to spell.
> 
> I will have to try the tung and beeswax combo. Im quite familiar with coating things in beeswax and ive got a lot of burl slabs to play with not to mention pallet bricks of beeswax that still smell like the fields they came from.
> I am time constrained this time so im gonna stick to the pine tar mix.
> ...



Walnut oil/beewax will also cure out nicely


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