Stockholm Tar or Pine Tar - How to achieve sustainable food production for increased profit and well-being

**For veterinary and agricultural purposes**: Stockholm tar a general black tar with natural antibacterial action. Stockholm Tar is a **completely natural, gooey substance that seals and protects any small cuts or nicks in the hoof**. A really useful addition to your tack box.

**Traditional uses of Stockholm Tar include**:
*fly deterrent,
*helps prevent Summer Mastitis in dry cows/heifers,
*applying to all cuts, grazes, wounds,
*prevention of: tail-biting, feather pecking, navel sucking,
*de-barking trees,
*repelling foxes.

Source: https://www.infobloom.com/what-is-stockholm-tar.htm

What is it?

Stockholm tar is an especially high grade of pine tar which is used among mariners, and also to treat outdoor furniture and rope designed for outdoor uses. Hardware stores and maritime suppliers are a good source for Stockholm tar, which may also be labeled archangel tar. Typically, Stockholm tar is mixed with other substances like linseed oil to make a spreadable solution which can be applied with heavy brushes or rags.

In addition, pine tar has been shown to be antipruritic, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and antifungal. These properties make pine tar suitable for the topical treatment of eczema, psoriasis, seborrhoeic dermatitis and other dry, itchy, flaky or inflamed skin conditions.

History

The production of tar in Scandinavia dates back to at least the 1400s, and it is probably even older. Tar is produced by burning pine in specially designed kilns which maintain a steady low temperature. As the pine burns down, the dense pitch runs out, and it is collected in a chamber located underneath the kiln. This process is known as “destructive distillation,” because it requires complete destruction of the wood to extract the valuable sap inside.

Originally, pine tar was extracted for use in ship building. A layer of pine tar could be applied both inside and outside a ship to help weatherproof it, ensuring that the wood resisted rot. Pine tar was also used to treat ropes and fixtures on ships so that they could endure long journeys, and furniture makers got the bright idea of applying pine tar to outdoor furnishings, as well.

It is not surprising that the production of pine tar took off in Scandinavia, given the region’s heavy pine forests. Within Scandinavia, tar from various regions was considered better than tar from other regions, and eventually a monopoly of Swedish tar producers arose in Stockholm, acquiring the best tar and selling it at a high price. As a result, high quality pine tar came to be known as “Stockholm tar,” referencing the city which dominated tar production from the late 1600s to the late 1800s.

Medicinal Uses

Topical pine tar: History, properties and use as a treatment for common skin conditions
Pine tar is the end product of pine wood carbonisation following distillation using extreme heat. An extensive literature search was conducted back to the 1950s for this review. Pine tar has been used in medicine for more than 2000 years to treat a range of skin conditions because of its soothing and antiseptic properties. Pine tar should not be confused with coal tar, which has been produced from coal for approximately a hundred years. Pine tar is thought to exert its effect by reducing DNA synthesis and mitotic activity, which promotes a return to normal keratinisation. In addition, pine tar has been shown to be antipruritic, anti‐inflammatory, antibacterial and antifungal. These properties make pine tar suitable for the topical treatment of eczema, psoriasis, seborrhoeic dermatitis and other dry, itchy, flaky or inflamed skin conditions. Topical products available over‐the‐counter in Australia today contain up to 2.3% pine tar, and come in several different formulations that can be used on the entire body, including the face. Modern day pine tar is manufactured with increased purity to eliminate toxic phenol and carcinogenic components, which have been of concern in the past. Primary irritation is uncommon. In conclusion, the long experience with topical pine tar therapy and its worldwide usage, together with the evidence presented in this review, suggests that pine tar is an effective treatment with minimal safety risk.

Pine tar has been used to cover peck wounds in captive bird flocks such as chickens, to prevent continued pecking on a wound and cannibalism.

Pine tar is also used in veterinary medicine as an expectorant and an antiseptic in chronic skin conditions.

Video

Instructions on how to make your own pinewood tar – Stockholm Tar!

Tar can be found in any sort of fat wood but getting it out of the wood, enough to coat a wooden chest, can be a bit of a venture. Previously I have sometimes made tar using a large bucket or sheet metal to guide the tar to the correct place and to keep the fire out. This is my first attempt to make tar without such devices. All I have to begin with are the tools made in previous videos and the forest and fire. And in a way that is enough. Some experience would have been nice to but hey, this is how you get that.

I have no idea where I learned about this method, I worked in a museum in my teens and have always been active in boys and girls scout, I probably picked it up at one of those places. And then I have also called up some of my friends and colleagues to freshen up the memory. What is special about this method is that the resin in the wood turns into tar when the charing fatwood heats up more fatwood coaling to become char coal. That means that the tar is heated up when made but then cooled down almost immediately after pouring out of the kiln. From what I have heard that makes particularly qualitative tar; red-ish brown tar, not black.

But this is a video about the kiln, not the tar. In this attempt I did not get very much tar and the tar I got was dark in colour due to extensive fire inside of the kiln. Fire is a problem in a kiln since it makes it too hot. Fire and extensive heat also produces coal dust making the tar black, thick and less ideal for treating wood. The kiln dirt eventually fell down in its lower parts making most of the tar pour out into the dirt.

It is also a video about the tools needed to make a kiln that works, particularly digging tools and a bucket. Without a bucket or other container tar manufacturing can not be made in these quantities. Two episodes into the future there will be proper amounts of red-ish tar made in this kiln.

The fatwood is Swedish fir root where the parts with lesser resin are rotten away and only fat wood is left. There were the roots of six or seven trees and each log was split into a proper size to allow useful forging coal as well as tar. In the mound/ditch every log is then placed in a pattern that allow liquids to pour down to the bottom as effortless as possible. The main problem in this burn was that too much air came in through the bottom hole too early in the process. That led to fire in the mound and that the heat came to the bottom of the ditch before coaling the wood above. Next time there will be less air in the mound early in the process.

This is a rather unusual way of making tar these days. It is also a way of making tar of a higher quality than you’d buy in the store. This is brown tar, or should I say reddish brown, with a higher resilience to water, ampler then black tar and on woodwork far more beautiful if you’d ask me. It is made from pine root in a tjärdal (tar ditch kiln) as tar has been made in Sweden for at least a thousand years. The old ditches can be found every here and there in the forests of Småland but I made my own one, about a fourth the size of what I believe is a normal size.

Making the kiln was a previous video where I also showed the splitting of pine stumps, the making of troughs/containers and how to dig without having a spade, check it out at: https://youtu.be/lq7H_je0VPY

This is one of the final episodes in a series where I explore craft processes without having a single hand tool to begin with and then make tools to make tools. Eventually the tools are used to build a tool chest from scratch to put the tools in. I just need tar to coat it and make sure the wood does not crack and bend

Learn this old skill and its many different uses.

I collect fatwood, show where I collect it from, and cook it down into charcoal and pine tar to waterproof log cabin logs and natural cordage made from cedar bark.