If you are interested in some of those other sealing methods, here is my last pottery sealing video which covers starch, lard, milk and cutting board conditioner ruclips.net/video/Ln4jKlfruaw/видео.html
Resin did leave a taste, as the wine Retsina had its unique flavor from the pine resin used to seal the vessels in which the wine was stored and shipped.
I wonder if birch resin would leave a better taste. And maybe try cold pressed flax oil instead of linseed, the linseed of today is made with chemicals added.
A 3 way compare *IS* good science. Your control for each is the other option. When testing a new drug, the control is often the existing drug for the same problem. Sometimes multiple options are compared also. Don't sell your self short on doing very practical science.
I wonder if, like the corded wear pottery, a mug shaped crocheted with oil cloth thread, such as flax (linseed) or sheep wool (lanolin) and then a repeated dipped and dry in the clay mixture. Then when the mug is fired in the kiln, the oils would release from the interior and seal whilst being kilned. 🤷🏽♀️
In Kerala, India, we seal the pots with rice starches. After washing the rice, save the liquid. Thereafter after cooking the rice, don't throw away the starchy liquid (rice gruel). Mix these two liquids and soak in it over three days (every day freshly washed rice and gruel). Soak the pots in this liquid for three day. On the 4th day, rinse and dry in the sun. Next use some coconut oil and leave the for some time. It will soak the oil. Thereafter,pour some more coconut oil.and fry some coconuts in the pot. The smell will stay through out.
Funny thing is rice starch is an old alchemy trick for making good clay for pots and crucible. But it was used in the process of working and processing the clay before shaping and firing it.
I took some time to realize why this video defined "old world" as just Europe and Middle East, until he said "other than glaze" and remembered how the silica-alumina based glaze became very dominant a lot earlier in East Asia compared to everywhere else. But it makes Indian subcontinent left out, so this was an interesting read for me. Rice is linked with pottery in Korea as well, mainly in maintaining them. Rice water is said to be a weak surfactant, so in Korea we wash porrous earthwares (those often used for fermentation) with starchy rice water. People avoid using dish soaps on them because the detergent can soak through and remain on those pots' porrous surfaces. Rice is "food-grade" by definition, and it's not only safe, but also absent of strong scent or aftertaste. Being it safe and subtle on pots should mean a lot, judging from how three test mugs fared in this video. Whether it is used as a sealant or a soap, it was cool to have known how different cultures use rice as a "food-grade" material to apply on cookware, thanks to you.
I don't know about earthen wear pottery, but when you seal earthen floors with boiled linseed oil, it involves several coats, drying between coats, and then ,when the clay will take absolutely no more oil, a topcoat of beeswax (often heated with a heat gun, and polished).
03:30 There is still a Greek wine today; the "retsina", whose origin, 4000 years ago, is the use of pine resin to seal the amphorae which were sent to the various trading posts of the Mediterranean Sea. The pine resin actually gave a particular taste to the wine, but also protected the wine from oxidation. This wine always has this particular taste well known to tourists in this country.
@@respectfulgamer7232 yep. Haven't had it (or any wine) for years, but my recollection was the first glass was pretty rough, but the subsequent ones went down pretty well :)
There are also really cheap greek wines where they add pine on purpose for the sake of tase. I heard it is really cheap and tastes bad, but it liked by the locals because of the tradition and because they drank it in times they had not much money.
I work a lot with pine pitch in pottery and can give a couple small pieces of advice to get more desirable results. First, you can put a slice of ginger in the pitch-sealed vessel overnight or for a couple of days to eliminate any odor. I have made decently large pieces and for some reason ginger just absorbs the bitter smell of the pitch very efficiently. Second, you can cook off any excess pitch by putting the vessels in the oven or near a fire at about 400F. The time it takes depends on the size of the vessel as well as the thickness of the pitch coating, but it should leave behind a very nice surface with any excess pitch burned away. You may even consider rubbing a rag saturated with pitch onto the vessel immediately after firing it rather than poring it into the vessel as you did in the video. The very hot ceramic will burn off any excess, leaving the pores completely sealed.
Remembering resin flavored wines and liquors drunk around the Eastern Mediterranean from ancient times to the present I did NOT expect the pitch sealed cup to be unodored or flavorless.
Well to be fair, mine was a very short duration test. Maybe if I left the drink in there for an extended time such as wine might, then I may have very different results.
When sealing wood with linseed oil, best results are when you put wood in a really hot oil (100C-130C +) and keep this temperature until bubbles /mostly/ stop coming out of the wood piece. Which means that wood is fully saturated with oil. After that, dry it for a week or a month, preferably in a dry and sunny place. Maybe same would work for earthenware? It will require a ton of oil, a really big metal pot and quite a bit of time though.
Thanks for that insight. Like I said in the video, I think if I could spend more time on it I could get a better seal with the linseed oil, but that smell...
@@AncientPottery The linseed oil is supposed to be applied before burning the cup. Or if you want later, then you have to wait until the oil dries completely, about two weeks. In both cases, you must apply a thin layer of oil that does not pool, if you apply too much, you must wipe it off. Too little is also bad. Polymerization of untreated linseed oil takes a long time.
@@AncientPottery Oh, you're right, I didn't take into account how high the temperature at which you fire clay pots is. So probably only the second option remains. You can also try to imitate the process of burning linseed oil as in cast iron pots
Wine enthusiast here: Pitch was definitely used in wine containers during Roman times. This was definitely detectable by taste; at least some winemaking in France was done both in 'pitched' and 'clean' variants, pitched for those weird Romans, unpitched for local consumption. It seems so have been an acquired taste, which, for the Romans (probably due to bad experiences pre-pitch), indicated quality. Kind of like chlorinated water nowadays, which apparently is preferred by Americans and French, but is actually disliked in my country (the Netherlands), because we have clean drinking water coming out of our taps without chlorination. Love your vids, btw!
If you use linseed/flaxseed oil to seal food or drink vessels, be sure it’s the edible kind. Flaxseed oil and linseed oil are the same thing, but (in the USA) the kind used for food is usually called flaxseed oil, and the kind used for furniture finishes and paint is usually called linseed oil (terminology may differ in other countries). “Boiled” linseed oil typically contains solvents and driers that are not food-safe. But the pure linseed oil sold as a food ingredient or dietary supplement is safe to use on dishes.
Good Morning Andy! How wonderful to meet your wife! Thank you - historical sealing options are not a widely considered topic and these insights you are sharing enlighten not only out present, but our past in the most delightful way!
For wooden cups, I use a paste I make by mixing beeswax and linseed oil. But you have to let it cure for a couple of days before use. Yes, they smell strongly on the first few days, but after a week there is no noticeable difference smell.
Great Video as always 😄 The south asian part where I am from, buttermilk or mustard oil is used to seal the pots for cooking They soak pot really well in water/buttermilk for a few days, changing water every second or third day and leave it out in the sun Then they would apply oil really well and leave it out in the sun again and probably apply 3-4 coats of oil so the sealing process in really lengthy . I guess in far south where they would use Rice water as an alternative of starch and probably use coconut oil or any kind of local oil available
@@AncientPottery Mustard is part of the same family as rapeseed oil (cabbage family). I believe it's called Canola in the States. I wonder if that would work as well.
John Plant over on the Primitive Technology channel uses porous earthenware to process clay. He starts by stirring clay-bearing soil into a pit filled with water and gives it a couple of seconds for the heavy particles to drop to the bottom, leaving the fine clay particles in suspension. He then transfers the suspension to a large earthenware pot where the water slowly seeps out leaving the clay behind. He uses a similar process to dry iron-bearing sludge.
Pine pitch has been used to water proof leather water bottles. It works amazing and can sometimes give a piney taste to the water which could be helpful if ur water had a weird taste.
Such a blend is used in other traditional sealant applications, like canoes. I think the pitch adds a certain toughness while the wax adds fluidity/workability. Also pure beeswax would probably absorb and get saturated with oil and soften if not outright dissolve if used in long term contact. Pine or polymerizing oils might be superior for sealing in oils in that regard? Not sure but the best sealant probably is application dependent. But for coffee mugs im also convinced of the bees wax!
I love the "no, I dont have a control, because I'm NOT a scientist" especially because you do have theories and are testing and documenting most of what you're doing. Yeah sure, its not rigorous and exhaustive, but you're experimenting and documenting, which I would call the heart of science.
Hi Andy, I wanted to compliment you on not only sharing some great info on sealants for your earthenware pottery (beeswax seems like the one I would use), but also including some fire safety tips (the Smokey the Bear insert was great!). Folks can sometimes be a little careless with fire, so your attention to this really shows what a thoughtful person you are and the purpose with which you approach this honored craft. Looking forward to watching more of your content and hopefully doing some outdoor firing myself in the not-too-distant future. Cheers!
As someone who spent summers at cottages or camping with campfires, candles, and kerosene lamps, I'm always shocked at how careless people can be around open flames/fires.
Hey Andy, I can't thank you enough, besides my sub, for the work and information you are providing. I just fired my 1st 2 pieces made from Georgia's red clay. I did it in a pit fire on corrugated steel with a rock circle on top. I had my 1st bowl and a gooffy little pinch pot much smaller. I used wood ash and sand, unmeasured for grog, and honestly expected total failure. I did wedge it. I am truly blessed today! Both made it without any problems. I'm in shock, for real. I've seen so many tragedies. I worked hard on the bowl and burnished it to a nice shiny surface. I put a metal pot over it like you did in a video as I did not have broken pieces yet to put around. This was a few hours earlier. I wiped it down with food grade mineral oil and I'm about to try eating my hot dinner, rice and veggies, in it. I'm on cloud 9 over here! Thank you! I'm so excited about this new hobby as an old man now. It's a ton of work, but it cost me nothing, and it's beautiful! I hope this finds you well my friend, you're a good man and the world needs more folks like you. Thank you, and I'll let you know if dinner goes right through it or not either way. I'm a deer hunter too and process everything myself. Deer fat is so sticky, I make bone broth too, seems like that would seal it totally. Wondering what your thoughts on that are. Again, thank you sincerely.
I think the trick is to coat them then put them again on the coals, suspended so it dries out. That way, the pitch can polymerize and turn from resin into rosin. And it probably won't hurt the other sealing methods, either, to do. Edit: You might want to start a smaller fire nearby, too, to get the temperature high enough for the oil and pitch to fully polymerize into basically ancient plastic. And also you might want to use something like a piece of cloth to "polish" the surface in the same way you would with a buffing compound, again, all that before "baking" the result at high temperatures, so the oil and resin can turn rock-hard. Often, a mixture of resin and wax was used to get the melting point of the mixture lower, before it was baked to evaporate the wax and have only the resin leftover, as a glossy coating. Also, I'm not entirely sure if this works, but I think it could be, so I think it is worth trying: by mixing beach sand (silica sand) with lye (which was traditionally made from wood/grass/plant ash, so from potassium instead of sodium), you make waterglass, which you can use to not-really-seal pottery, then dry it out, then add an acid (i.e. vinegar) to separate the lye from the sand "shell", then carefully remove the liquid, then bake it again, or bake it for the first time. You would likely have to do this in a few steps, for example first the bottom then use some clay as a lid to keep the liquid in while doing the sides by marking a + and an x on one side of the cup so you can remove the lye 1/8 of the cup at a time, for the silica to precipitate and form a shell around the clay, which to cover the pores of the clay. If this is done before firing, it would likely be needed to let the clay dry so the silica layer properly bonds/adheres to the clay. I know this was not traditionally done, as far as I know, and it would have been a lot of effort for getting a glass glaze, but you might be able to get a glass glaze this way.
If you stored a light white wine in a pine pitch sealed amphora, the result might approximate *retsina* -- which is a Greek wine that's stored in pine barrels and picks up flavor from the pine resin. I've had this, and found it pleasant enough, though I'm not much of a wine drinker. I'd have hoped you'd allow several weeks for the linseed oil to cure -- I recall from learning oil painting (really forty years ago?) that oil based paints might take as much as a year to fully cure, and even the old oil based house paints (still in use when I was a kid in the 1960s, since completely replaced with latex-based, water-solvent paints) would take several days to cure enough to be safe to handle. Also worth noting that pitch (presumably from pine) was used throughout medieval times to seal "jacks" -- leather drinking mugs. These were used to drink whatever a traveler might get (which would be ale more often than anything else). Given the inconsistency of medieval beer before gruit was replaced by hops, however, it's very possible a traveler would never notice a flavor in the beer from the pine pitch.
This is very interesting. Brings to mind the concept of solvency. The sealing mixture of wax and resin should have a lower solvency than the oil. This ensures a solid seal.
Get fire department structure fire gloves if you can. You can pick up burning logs with them and hold them for a while before they even start to get at all warm so even if something flammable gets on them and catches fire, you shouldn't get burnt unless you try to scratch your nose with them on fire.
I use a copy of a southeastern cup for my coffee. I'm using native clay I dug from a slough about 1/4 mile from my house. The first cup or two of coffee leach into the clay and the coffee cools very quickly. After that, with regular use, they quickly stop being porous. My clay isn't a terra cotta but it's pretty close. It fires tan to orange. If I leave it in the fire, it will turn orange to grey, depending on how seasoned the wood is.
I've been making earthenware ollas to water my vegetable during our (increasingly hot and dry) summers, based on traditional techniques from multiple cultures. It sure beats having to get up at the buttcrack of dawn to water my large garden before it gets hot, and having to water multiple times a day. Because the olla is buried and covered, it eliminates evaporation from the surface, meaning almost all the water goes where it's needed, to my plants' roots, and isn't wasted. I also made an earthenware pot to mount orchids to. That porous nature is very useful!
I only recently learned that un treated ceramic weeps, AND NOW IM SEEING STUFF RELATED TO THAT FACT EVERYWHERE!!!!! I’m enjoying learning a bunch of new things!!!
Very nice to see Tanya! Thanks so much for this demo. I've been trying to figure out how to make my primitive pottery more practical. I would love to make a coffee cup with my wild blue clay.
Birch tree resin was used in many things as glue and sealants due to it being more stable and 'flexible' compared to pine resin. Pine resin over time can crack especially in cold weather. It's hard to make Birch resin in comparison as it has to be made in a vacuum but it's been around since the Neanderthals as they used it too. The mix of wax and resin it to keep the seal 'flexible'. You could potentially get an incredible long lasting seal by using birch resin with a small amount of bees wax.
It's common to tap some types of birch trees for sap in spring time to make sweet syrup for candy or pancake topping. The sugar content is much less than maple sap, so results of boiling off, are much smaller, but still useful amounts can be had.
I really enjoy your videos. Thanks for taking the time out to show your viewers. I tried to gather clay and it went horrible wrong. I know where I made my mistake . The process went well except for the material I used. I loaded the video on my channel. It is titled Making Clay Disaster. I've learned to really make sure you harvest clay deposits.
Hi, thx for the amazing content. I live in South Italy, here we still use "terra cotta" pottery for some cooking. Generally, on first use, we give a special treatment to the pot, letting it rest for a night into water, then we wash it. Maybe it's a missing step in your process and this is why you have floating material into your coffee
I like the taste of pine pitch. When I’m out and about, I’ll often collect some piñon sap and chew it like gum. (BTW, some Navajo pottery is sealed with pine pitch.)
Yes I am familiar with the Navajo use of pitch and have always wondered if it flavored the water. I don't particularly like the flavor of pine pitch but it is way better than the flavor of linseed oil. Thanks.
There were resins that were less flavourful - mastic from Pistacia lentiscus, for example. The classic amphora was often waterproofed with asphalt. Not recommended. The usual dilution of wine with water was suggested to be to reduce the resin and asphalt taste.
I know from wood working that linseed oil really needs multiple applications to seal with really really long times between applications and a long wait after the last one. Raw linseed oil takes forever to finish hardening but once it does it is very good stuff.
love it love it love it!! you and your wife are adoreable. thank you for all you do, i am learning neat stuff I never even thought of before.. and I appreciate your videos.
Andy the temps out there have been insane…I don’t know how y’all do it. But I’m glad you’ve survived the summer and are feeling better. Great to hear you are refilming those early videos. Your sound quality and organization are so much better I’m looking forward to seeing what you do. Good luck!
The Greek wine Retsina is flavoured with pine resin. Probably a taste developed from ancient times of transporting and storing the wine in resin sealed jars.
Just want to say I love your channel. I've been wanting to get more experience in the old world ways and you boosted my interest in clay from like 5% to 100. One thing I do choose over your dry method is wet "sifting" .Just imo, it gives you the chance to wake up any bacteria, and easily get rid of them, their wastes, and past bioorganic debris. Of course there's always bacteria in clay, but this has been getting me a nice consistency, as compared to other clays I've bought, decent amount of silt, and I can control the temper with the sand I took from the base dirt. Just my backyard starting experience from past knowledge and watching your channel 👍.
Hi, Vik from Geeko Farm here. We grow olives. I can tell you for sure that beeswax dissolves in olive oil, so maybe not a great choice for amphorae. Tar is definitely softened by olive oil (handy cleaning tip), so it would probably dissolve into it to some extent, so not sure how that would go long term. Not tried it on pine resin.
Good to know, thanks. I suppose if you were just eating and drinking from it, there may not be time for the oil to dissolve it, but if it were stored there that would be a different story.
Another interesting thing to try would be to to burn in the oil like you do with cast iron cookware. I bet you would have to do it multiple times but the resulting carbon in the pores should be a very effective and taste-free seal. I can also imagine ancient people did this because it happens naturally if you have something oily in the pot and forget about it for too long.
I visited Sri Lanka in the 80s and beer was served in unsealed terracotta mugs. The beer soaked through the pottery and the evaporation cooled the contents. Not everywhere had refrigeration so this was a practical solution to warm beer.
I was helping with laying a foundation when I lived in Peru and I found some really old pottery that was painted on the outside. I wonder if that's how they made it so that it didn't weep. I know I painted a glass bottle one time, put cold water in it, and my paint came off, but presumably they weren't using acrylic paints in ancient Peru.
So with armor blackening you put a thin coat of linseed oil on and then heat it and hold it at the smoke point, but without heating it to the burn off point, you should try giving it a second coat and then baking it at just over 500F.
you can mix pine resin, beeswax and linseed oil, and soak the vessels with this paste. I think it would be much easier to apply this impregnation, and the result would be excellent. the only thing is to choose the ratio of the parts of each substance.
A stick would of been ideal to plunge in the gravel so you could just set your mug over to drain out. There may be a surface blemish of more resin, wax or oil where the stick and vessel touch but inside the cup and not on the lip. Like a wine bottle drying rack. The pine and beeswax maybe a good mixture if you can find that sweet ratio. But I appreciate your vid and have filed this in the back of the noggin for future use! Thank you so much! This reminds me of the cooking baskets and clay vessels that just got better seasoned over time.
Ooh I love using beeswax for everything - I'll bring it when I fire my first pots! Assuming they fire correctly and don't break 😅 I've been binging your videos since I sculpted my first pot with river clay & had no idea how to fire it. Didn't know about temper, so the first one is probably going to crack, but we'll see!
interesting test, I have my own supply of beeswax so thats what I would use but intriguing to see the flax oil and pine resin along side. Thanks for sharing
The association of smells is learned. When I lived in MX for a while, I had to learn that the strange smell of the laundry and dish soaps, would eventually be associated with clean, but at first, it did not!
Flaxseed is the one of the three that is not only edible, but good for you. In the long run, that might be worth the extra time wiping off residue and drying in the sun (maybe a long dry time and not multiple coats is all that is required?). Earthen floors (dirt floors) are sealed with linseed over a long period of time, then you can mop them. Anyway, it's very cool how they all worked.
Hi Andy. Great video again and perfect timing with the content. After I had coffee in my just fired cup it felt kinda damp and sticky on the outside, now I will definitely seal it. Thank you for going through the trouble and sharing this informative video. Looking forward to the next one. 😊 Say hi to your wife it was great meeting her.
Thank you Andy! I'm working towards living off grid and I'll be making just about everything I need with the exception of solar and wind power. I've learned so much on your channel and I like that you are offering classes.
Thanks for a very interesting video. I was surprised that the linseed oil (aka Flaxseed oil) wasn't more effective. When I purchased my carbon steel wok the manufacturer recommended flaxseed oil to seal the steel. I've also used it on cast iron with great success - liberally coat the vessel then heat it to the smoke point and when it cools it is sealed very well. I kind of expected that stoneware would be the same. So, it was very interesting to see it wasn't as effective.
Great videos and I liked your work a lot too. .. Retsina wine is flavoured with pine resin, perhaps it’s origin was in being tainted by its storage vessel and the taste then being acquired over time. Personally I like the taste of beeswax in modest amounts in honey and flaxseeds (linseed) are good in bread.
Retsina is a Greek white resinated wine, which has been made for at least 2,000 years. Its unique flavor is said to have originated from the practice of sealing wine vessels, particularly amphorae, with Aleppo pine resin in ancient times. Wikipedia
lol Smokey the Bear! Back when I was a firefighter, I had to wear the Smokey costume when I was a newbie and boy did it smell bad in that costume, plus it's hard to see where you're going and it's incredibly hot in there! Still, from being a kid camping, I always douse my fire in ample water, so much so that the branches I cut to make a shelter over my fire at my fort in the woods started to grow again come spring. You know you've put your fire out well and good with water if cut branches start growing because of all the water.
If you are interested in some of those other sealing methods, here is my last pottery sealing video which covers starch, lard, milk and cutting board conditioner ruclips.net/video/Ln4jKlfruaw/видео.html
Resin did leave a taste, as the wine Retsina had its unique flavor from the pine resin used to seal the vessels in which the wine was stored and shipped.
I wonder if birch resin would leave a better taste. And maybe try cold pressed flax oil instead of linseed, the linseed of today is made with chemicals added.
A 3 way compare *IS* good science. Your control for each is the other option. When testing a new drug, the control is often the existing drug for the same problem. Sometimes multiple options are compared also. Don't sell your self short on doing very practical science.
What about just a mixture of honey and fine clay. Cover the inside let it dry and start , sand and start over a few times..
I wonder if, like the corded wear pottery, a mug shaped crocheted with oil cloth thread, such as flax (linseed) or sheep wool (lanolin) and then a repeated dipped and dry in the clay mixture. Then when the mug is fired in the kiln, the oils would release from the interior and seal whilst being kilned. 🤷🏽♀️
In Kerala, India, we seal the pots with rice starches. After washing the rice, save the liquid. Thereafter after cooking the rice, don't throw away the starchy liquid (rice gruel). Mix these two liquids and soak in it over three days (every day freshly washed rice and gruel). Soak the pots in this liquid for three day. On the 4th day, rinse and dry in the sun. Next use some coconut oil and leave the for some time. It will soak the oil. Thereafter,pour some more coconut oil.and fry some coconuts in the pot. The smell will stay through out.
Funny thing is rice starch is an old alchemy trick for making good clay for pots and crucible. But it was used in the process of working and processing the clay before shaping and firing it.
@@SilvaDreams Thank you for this information. I didn't know it. May be used, may be they didn't. Let me ask potters whether they do it.
I took some time to realize why this video defined "old world" as just Europe and Middle East, until he said "other than glaze" and remembered how the silica-alumina based glaze became very dominant a lot earlier in East Asia compared to everywhere else. But it makes Indian subcontinent left out, so this was an interesting read for me. Rice is linked with pottery in Korea as well, mainly in maintaining them. Rice water is said to be a weak surfactant, so in Korea we wash porrous earthwares (those often used for fermentation) with starchy rice water. People avoid using dish soaps on them because the detergent can soak through and remain on those pots' porrous surfaces. Rice is "food-grade" by definition, and it's not only safe, but also absent of strong scent or aftertaste. Being it safe and subtle on pots should mean a lot, judging from how three test mugs fared in this video. Whether it is used as a sealant or a soap, it was cool to have known how different cultures use rice as a "food-grade" material to apply on cookware, thanks to you.
Thank you
Philippines we use grated coconut rub outside and put it on fire,and cook the grated coconut inside until it turns black
I don't know about earthen wear pottery, but when you seal earthen floors with boiled linseed oil, it involves several coats, drying between coats, and then ,when the clay will take absolutely no more oil, a topcoat of beeswax (often heated with a heat gun, and polished).
Thanks for that tip.
03:30 There is still a Greek wine today; the "retsina", whose origin, 4000 years ago, is the use of pine resin to seal the amphorae which were sent to the various trading posts of the Mediterranean Sea. The pine resin actually gave a particular taste to the wine, but also protected the wine from oxidation. This wine always has this particular taste well known to tourists in this country.
Interesting, thanks
it's an acquired taste..
@@respectfulgamer7232 yep. Haven't had it (or any wine) for years, but my recollection was the first glass was pretty rough, but the subsequent ones went down pretty well :)
There are also really cheap greek wines where they add pine on purpose for the sake of tase. I heard it is really cheap and tastes bad, but it liked by the locals because of the tradition and because they drank it in times they had not much money.
I love retsina!
Pine tar is used as a flavour in some places (e.g. for ice cream in Finland), so for some people that might be a bonus!
Oh my! Pine tar ice cream that does sound terrible
It has unique smoky barbeque note in it. Great for candy (tar lion) and fish like salmon, in ice cream it's aquirred taste
Finnish wine is flavored with spruce or fir rarely pine. Never pine tar.
And sweets in Denmark
Hmm, smoky pine flavoured ice cream, I think I could go for that
"Do I have a control? No, I do not. Because I'm not a scientist." That made me chuckle and it just feels like a whole mood.
Thanks
"I'm not a scientist"... Then drinks the pine pitch. You Sir, are indeed a scientist of the best kind!
I work a lot with pine pitch in pottery and can give a couple small pieces of advice to get more desirable results. First, you can put a slice of ginger in the pitch-sealed vessel overnight or for a couple of days to eliminate any odor. I have made decently large pieces and for some reason ginger just absorbs the bitter smell of the pitch very efficiently.
Second, you can cook off any excess pitch by putting the vessels in the oven or near a fire at about 400F. The time it takes depends on the size of the vessel as well as the thickness of the pitch coating, but it should leave behind a very nice surface with any excess pitch burned away.
You may even consider rubbing a rag saturated with pitch onto the vessel immediately after firing it rather than poring it into the vessel as you did in the video. The very hot ceramic will burn off any excess, leaving the pores completely sealed.
Where do you get your pitch? Do you perhaps make it yourself?
Remembering resin flavored wines and liquors drunk around the Eastern Mediterranean from ancient times to the present I did NOT expect the pitch sealed cup to be unodored or flavorless.
Well to be fair, mine was a very short duration test. Maybe if I left the drink in there for an extended time such as wine might, then I may have very different results.
@@AncientPottery Ethanol is a better solvent than water for some substances. Water is a highly polar solvent and hardly dissolves oily stuff.
There is a reason the ancient Greeks drank their wine (retsina) diluted with water...
Also wine on a ship does get quite as hot
When sealing wood with linseed oil, best results are when you put wood in a really hot oil (100C-130C +) and keep this temperature until bubbles /mostly/ stop coming out of the wood piece. Which means that wood is fully saturated with oil. After that, dry it for a week or a month, preferably in a dry and sunny place. Maybe same would work for earthenware? It will require a ton of oil, a really big metal pot and quite a bit of time though.
Thanks for that insight. Like I said in the video, I think if I could spend more time on it I could get a better seal with the linseed oil, but that smell...
@@AncientPottery Smell will go away with time and with use, but yeah, it's tolerable but not pleasant for sure.
@@AncientPottery The linseed oil is supposed to be applied before burning the cup. Or if you want later, then you have to wait until the oil dries completely, about two weeks. In both cases, you must apply a thin layer of oil that does not pool, if you apply too much, you must wipe it off. Too little is also bad. Polymerization of untreated linseed oil takes a long time.
@@Timoshim You cannot apply the oil before firing, it would all burn away
@@AncientPottery Oh, you're right, I didn't take into account how high the temperature at which you fire clay pots is. So probably only the second option remains. You can also try to imitate the process of burning linseed oil as in cast iron pots
I love your approach to advertising. I much rather hear about your classes than some junk.
Thank you
Wine enthusiast here: Pitch was definitely used in wine containers during Roman times. This was definitely detectable by taste; at least some winemaking in France was done both in 'pitched' and 'clean' variants, pitched for those weird Romans, unpitched for local consumption. It seems so have been an acquired taste, which, for the Romans (probably due to bad experiences pre-pitch), indicated quality. Kind of like chlorinated water nowadays, which apparently is preferred by Americans and French, but is actually disliked in my country (the Netherlands), because we have clean drinking water coming out of our taps without chlorination. Love your vids, btw!
Thanks, I have learned this since I made the video. I would love to do some experiments with wine.
If you use linseed/flaxseed oil to seal food or drink vessels, be sure it’s the edible kind. Flaxseed oil and linseed oil are the same thing, but (in the USA) the kind used for food is usually called flaxseed oil, and the kind used for furniture finishes and paint is usually called linseed oil (terminology may differ in other countries). “Boiled” linseed oil typically contains solvents and driers that are not food-safe. But the pure linseed oil sold as a food ingredient or dietary supplement is safe to use on dishes.
Buy it from the grocery store. The kind at the hardware store is not for human consumption.
Good Morning Andy! How wonderful to meet your wife! Thank you - historical sealing options are not a widely considered topic and these insights you are sharing enlighten not only out present, but our past in the most delightful way!
Thanks, I am glad you are appreciating my content.
Interesting! “Let’s see what happens” are some of my favorite words.
LOL, (fun ensues)
For wooden cups, I use a paste I make by mixing beeswax and linseed oil. But you have to let it cure for a couple of days before use. Yes, they smell strongly on the first few days, but after a week there is no noticeable difference smell.
Thanks for the tip, I will try it
~ 3:00 That's why there is "Retsina"-wine in Greece...great info !!!
Great Video as always 😄
The south asian part where I am from, buttermilk or mustard oil is used to seal the pots for cooking
They soak pot really well in water/buttermilk for a few days, changing water every second or third day and leave it out in the sun
Then they would apply oil really well and leave it out in the sun again and probably apply 3-4 coats of oil
so the sealing process in really lengthy
.
I guess in far south where they would use Rice water as an alternative of starch and probably use coconut oil or any kind of local oil available
Thanks for that info, very helpful.
@@AncientPottery Mustard is part of the same family as rapeseed oil (cabbage family). I believe it's called Canola in the States. I wonder if that would work as well.
@@rosalindriley5893 It should, it isn't just part of the same family, it is literally the same plant (Brassica rapa).
John Plant over on the Primitive Technology channel uses porous earthenware to process clay. He starts by stirring clay-bearing soil into a pit filled with water and gives it a couple of seconds for the heavy particles to drop to the bottom, leaving the fine clay particles in suspension. He then transfers the suspension to a large earthenware pot where the water slowly seeps out leaving the clay behind. He uses a similar process to dry iron-bearing sludge.
Pine pitch has been used to water proof leather water bottles. It works amazing and can sometimes give a piney taste to the water which could be helpful if ur water had a weird taste.
Interesting, thanks
The pine pitch method definitely looks the coolest.
I saw those cup going upside down on the sand and I thought oh oh. Use a flat stone Andy!
Yep, lesson learned.
Loved meeting the Mrs! Hurray on a successful trial.
Thanks you
I've found that a beeswax and resin blend works really well too and there's evidence of this blend in ancient times.
Thanks for that
Such a blend is used in other traditional sealant applications, like canoes. I think the pitch adds a certain toughness while the wax adds fluidity/workability. Also pure beeswax would probably absorb and get saturated with oil and soften if not outright dissolve if used in long term contact. Pine or polymerizing oils might be superior for sealing in oils in that regard? Not sure but the best sealant probably is application dependent. But for coffee mugs im also convinced of the bees wax!
It was obvious how much time and effort spent on editing. I really liked it.
Thanks, glad you recognized my effort here.
I love the "no, I dont have a control, because I'm NOT a scientist" especially because you do have theories and are testing and documenting most of what you're doing. Yeah sure, its not rigorous and exhaustive, but you're experimenting and documenting, which I would call the heart of science.
You might not be a ‘qualified’ scientist Andy-but these kinds of experiments are really interesting-thank you
I agree--though I do wish there were just an unsealed mug negative control for comparison!
Hi Andy, I wanted to compliment you on not only sharing some great info on sealants for your earthenware pottery (beeswax seems like the one I would use), but also including some fire safety tips (the Smokey the Bear insert was great!). Folks can sometimes be a little careless with fire, so your attention to this really shows what a thoughtful person you are and the purpose with which you approach this honored craft. Looking forward to watching more of your content and hopefully doing some outdoor firing myself in the not-too-distant future. Cheers!
Thank you. I spent 10 years working as a fire fighter for the US Forest Service so I am always aware of fire safety.
I definitely appreciated the fire safety reminder, the best craftsmen always make a point of reminding their students to be safe.
As someone who spent summers at cottages or camping with campfires, candles, and kerosene lamps, I'm always shocked at how careless people can be around open flames/fires.
Hey Andy, I can't thank you enough, besides my sub, for the work and information you are providing. I just fired my 1st 2 pieces made from Georgia's red clay. I did it in a pit fire on corrugated steel with a rock circle on top. I had my 1st bowl and a gooffy little pinch pot much smaller. I used wood ash and sand, unmeasured for grog, and honestly expected total failure. I did wedge it. I am truly blessed today! Both made it without any problems. I'm in shock, for real. I've seen so many tragedies. I worked hard on the bowl and burnished it to a nice shiny surface. I put a metal pot over it like you did in a video as I did not have broken pieces yet to put around. This was a few hours earlier. I wiped it down with food grade mineral oil and I'm about to try eating my hot dinner, rice and veggies, in it. I'm on cloud 9 over here! Thank you! I'm so excited about this new hobby as an old man now. It's a ton of work, but it cost me nothing, and it's beautiful! I hope this finds you well my friend, you're a good man and the world needs more folks like you. Thank you, and I'll let you know if dinner goes right through it or not either way. I'm a deer hunter too and process everything myself. Deer fat is so sticky, I make bone broth too, seems like that would seal it totally. Wondering what your thoughts on that are. Again, thank you sincerely.
That's awesome glad to hear of your success. Yes I think deer fat would make a great sealant.
I think the trick is to coat them then put them again on the coals, suspended so it dries out. That way, the pitch can polymerize and turn from resin into rosin. And it probably won't hurt the other sealing methods, either, to do. Edit: You might want to start a smaller fire nearby, too, to get the temperature high enough for the oil and pitch to fully polymerize into basically ancient plastic. And also you might want to use something like a piece of cloth to "polish" the surface in the same way you would with a buffing compound, again, all that before "baking" the result at high temperatures, so the oil and resin can turn rock-hard. Often, a mixture of resin and wax was used to get the melting point of the mixture lower, before it was baked to evaporate the wax and have only the resin leftover, as a glossy coating.
Also, I'm not entirely sure if this works, but I think it could be, so I think it is worth trying: by mixing beach sand (silica sand) with lye (which was traditionally made from wood/grass/plant ash, so from potassium instead of sodium), you make waterglass, which you can use to not-really-seal pottery, then dry it out, then add an acid (i.e. vinegar) to separate the lye from the sand "shell", then carefully remove the liquid, then bake it again, or bake it for the first time. You would likely have to do this in a few steps, for example first the bottom then use some clay as a lid to keep the liquid in while doing the sides by marking a + and an x on one side of the cup so you can remove the lye 1/8 of the cup at a time, for the silica to precipitate and form a shell around the clay, which to cover the pores of the clay. If this is done before firing, it would likely be needed to let the clay dry so the silica layer properly bonds/adheres to the clay. I know this was not traditionally done, as far as I know, and it would have been a lot of effort for getting a glass glaze, but you might be able to get a glass glaze this way.
If you stored a light white wine in a pine pitch sealed amphora, the result might approximate *retsina* -- which is a Greek wine that's stored in pine barrels and picks up flavor from the pine resin. I've had this, and found it pleasant enough, though I'm not much of a wine drinker. I'd have hoped you'd allow several weeks for the linseed oil to cure -- I recall from learning oil painting (really forty years ago?) that oil based paints might take as much as a year to fully cure, and even the old oil based house paints (still in use when I was a kid in the 1960s, since completely replaced with latex-based, water-solvent paints) would take several days to cure enough to be safe to handle.
Also worth noting that pitch (presumably from pine) was used throughout medieval times to seal "jacks" -- leather drinking mugs. These were used to drink whatever a traveler might get (which would be ale more often than anything else). Given the inconsistency of medieval beer before gruit was replaced by hops, however, it's very possible a traveler would never notice a flavor in the beer from the pine pitch.
This is very interesting. Brings to mind the concept of solvency. The sealing mixture of wax and resin should have a lower solvency than the oil. This ensures a solid seal.
Interesting, my chemistry knowledge is definitely lacking
Get fire department structure fire gloves if you can. You can pick up burning logs with them and hold them for a while before they even start to get at all warm so even if something flammable gets on them and catches fire, you shouldn't get burnt unless you try to scratch your nose with them on fire.
Any drying oil, such at linseed, will work. I think poppyseed and walnut oils are drying. Also carnuba.
1:05 “do I have a control? No I do not, because I’m not a scientist” 😂
Comment for algorithm. Thank you for making intelligent content.
Thanks for watching
I use a copy of a southeastern cup for my coffee. I'm using native clay I dug from a slough about 1/4 mile from my house. The first cup or two of coffee leach into the clay and the coffee cools very quickly. After that, with regular use, they quickly stop being porous. My clay isn't a terra cotta but it's pretty close. It fires tan to orange. If I leave it in the fire, it will turn orange to grey, depending on how seasoned the wood is.
Cool
Thanks for sharing your tests! I really enjoyed watching this.
I've been making earthenware ollas to water my vegetable during our (increasingly hot and dry) summers, based on traditional techniques from multiple cultures. It sure beats having to get up at the buttcrack of dawn to water my large garden before it gets hot, and having to water multiple times a day. Because the olla is buried and covered, it eliminates evaporation from the surface, meaning almost all the water goes where it's needed, to my plants' roots, and isn't wasted. I also made an earthenware pot to mount orchids to. That porous nature is very useful!
I love how the pine pitch looks. The kind of cups I've seen in the old days.
8:10 I seen that coming when you put it down in the sand 😬
LOL, yeah I was obviously not thinking at that moment, oh well, learning experience.
I only recently learned that un treated ceramic weeps, AND NOW IM SEEING STUFF RELATED TO THAT FACT EVERYWHERE!!!!!
I’m enjoying learning a bunch of new things!!!
Ha ha, isn't that how it always works?
Apart from this great video you shared with us, you and your wife look so lovely together ❤
Thank you 31 years this week.
Very nice to see Tanya! Thanks so much for this demo. I've been trying to figure out how to make my primitive pottery more practical. I would love to make a coffee cup with my wild blue clay.
Sounds like a good project idea
Birch tree resin was used in many things as glue and sealants due to it being more stable and 'flexible' compared to pine resin. Pine resin over time can crack especially in cold weather. It's hard to make Birch resin in comparison as it has to be made in a vacuum but it's been around since the Neanderthals as they used it too. The mix of wax and resin it to keep the seal 'flexible'. You could potentially get an incredible long lasting seal by using birch resin with a small amount of bees wax.
Thanks but we don't have birch trees in Arizona and the weather doesn't get so cold that the pine resin will crack either.
It's common to tap some types of birch trees for sap in spring time to make sweet syrup for candy or pancake topping. The sugar content is much less than maple sap, so results of boiling off, are much smaller, but still useful amounts can be had.
Pine pitch/tar was commonly used to seal up wooden ships.Very cool to see this used to seal up the pottery, very cool stuff!
I was rooting for the beeswax. Beautiful looking mug.
Thanks
This was pretty funny, the smokey bear especially.
Thanks
This is great! I really like this guy's RUclips, and I'm so glad he said cowboy Kent Rollins was his go-to, I love that show it's the best.
Also I would think dipping the cup in the sealing liquids, and once drained off, heating up in the fire again would get rid of any excess sealant
There are a million ways it could be done. Hopefully this video gave people some ideas for sealing their own.
I've always been interested in ancient pottery and even made some clay myself, but I never knew how it was sealed. I really appreciate this video!
I really enjoy your videos. Thanks for taking the time out to show your viewers.
I tried to gather clay and it went horrible wrong. I know where I made my mistake .
The process went well except for the material I used. I loaded the video on my channel.
It is titled Making Clay Disaster. I've learned to really make sure you harvest clay deposits.
I'm sure you will do better next time. Treat your mistake as a learning experience and keep going.
Great video, Andy, and nice to see Mrs Andy too 🙂
Thanks
Hi, thx for the amazing content. I live in South Italy, here we still use "terra cotta" pottery for some cooking. Generally, on first use, we give a special treatment to the pot, letting it rest for a night into water, then we wash it. Maybe it's a missing step in your process and this is why you have floating material into your coffee
Thanks for the tip. Awesome to hear they are still doing it the old way in Italy.
I like the taste of pine pitch. When I’m out and about, I’ll often collect some piñon sap and chew it like gum. (BTW, some Navajo pottery is sealed with pine pitch.)
Yes I am familiar with the Navajo use of pitch and have always wondered if it flavored the water. I don't particularly like the flavor of pine pitch but it is way better than the flavor of linseed oil. Thanks.
There were resins that were less flavourful - mastic from Pistacia lentiscus, for example. The classic amphora was often waterproofed with asphalt. Not recommended. The usual dilution of wine with water was suggested to be to reduce the resin and asphalt taste.
I know from wood working that linseed oil really needs multiple applications to seal with really really long times between applications and a long wait after the last one. Raw linseed oil takes forever to finish hardening but once it does it is very good stuff.
Thanks for the info
love it love it love it!! you and your wife are adoreable. thank you for all you do, i am learning neat stuff I never even thought of before.. and I appreciate your videos.
Thanks so much! I am glad you are finding my videos educational and entertaining.
Andy the temps out there have been insane…I don’t know how y’all do it. But I’m glad you’ve survived the summer and are feeling better. Great to hear you are refilming those early videos. Your sound quality and organization are so much better I’m looking forward to seeing what you do. Good luck!
I'm not surprised the pitch worked well... it WAS used to seal boats and to waterproof items.
I love you advertised yourself!
The Greek wine Retsina is flavoured with pine resin. Probably a taste developed from ancient times of transporting and storing the wine in resin sealed jars.
Just want to say I love your channel. I've been wanting to get more experience in the old world ways and you boosted my interest in clay from like 5% to 100.
One thing I do choose over your dry method is wet "sifting" .Just imo, it gives you the chance to wake up any bacteria, and easily get rid of them, their wastes, and past bioorganic debris. Of course there's always bacteria in clay, but this has been getting me a nice consistency, as compared to other clays I've bought, decent amount of silt, and I can control the temper with the sand I took from the base dirt. Just my backyard starting experience from past knowledge and watching your channel 👍.
I think that the pine pitch dribbles down the outside of the mug is really beautiful.
I agree, that mug has some real charm
Clay God! 🙌 I've learned so much from you over the years, thanks for sharing your passion so well 🤠 all the best to you
linseed oil is a drying oil. apply it wet on wet till the mug no longer sucks it in.let it dry a few days then you can top coat it if you want.
I think the fire will encourage faster drying, you can heat up a pot much more than you can wood.
I've loved theses sealing videos
Thanks
Hi, Vik from Geeko Farm here. We grow olives. I can tell you for sure that beeswax dissolves in olive oil, so maybe not a great choice for amphorae. Tar is definitely softened by olive oil (handy cleaning tip), so it would probably dissolve into it to some extent, so not sure how that would go long term. Not tried it on pine resin.
Good to know, thanks. I suppose if you were just eating and drinking from it, there may not be time for the oil to dissolve it, but if it were stored there that would be a different story.
Greatest video thank you for this information knowledge😊
You are welcome
Another interesting thing to try would be to to burn in the oil like you do with cast iron cookware.
I bet you would have to do it multiple times but the resulting carbon in the pores should be a very effective and taste-free seal.
I can also imagine ancient people did this because it happens naturally if you have something oily in the pot and forget about it for too long.
Yeah I think the oil just needs more coats and heatings. I'm sure with time it could be improved.
Some oils are 'drying oils' and they polymerise to form a gel. Linseed does this, but the pure, food-safe version takes ages
Another Great Video Andy! You know I’ve been waiting on this one haha. 🙌🏼
Thanks, I am glad to finally provide it, this video has been in the works for weeks.
I visited Sri Lanka in the 80s and beer was served in unsealed terracotta mugs. The beer soaked through the pottery and the evaporation cooled the contents. Not everywhere had refrigeration so this was a practical solution to warm beer.
That's cool
I like the inclusion of the bloopers/behind the scenes at the end. 😆 Greetings Mrs. Ward, nice to meet ya! 👋
Thanks
I was helping with laying a foundation when I lived in Peru and I found some really old pottery that was painted on the outside. I wonder if that's how they made it so that it didn't weep. I know I painted a glass bottle one time, put cold water in it, and my paint came off, but presumably they weren't using acrylic paints in ancient Peru.
What a wonderful channel to find.
Thanks
So with armor blackening you put a thin coat of linseed oil on and then heat it and hold it at the smoke point, but without heating it to the burn off point, you should try giving it a second coat and then baking it at just over 500F.
you can mix pine resin, beeswax and linseed oil, and soak the vessels with this paste. I think it would be much easier to apply this impregnation, and the result would be excellent. the only thing is to choose the ratio of the parts of each substance.
Soaking overnight in oil is something I have been thinking about
A stick would of been ideal to plunge in the gravel so you could just set your mug over to drain out. There may be a surface blemish of more resin, wax or oil where the stick and vessel touch but inside the cup and not on the lip. Like a wine bottle drying rack. The pine and beeswax maybe a good mixture if you can find that sweet ratio. But I appreciate your vid and have filed this in the back of the noggin for future use! Thank you so much! This reminds me of the cooking baskets and clay vessels that just got better seasoned over time.
Ooh I love using beeswax for everything - I'll bring it when I fire my first pots! Assuming they fire correctly and don't break 😅
I've been binging your videos since I sculpted my first pot with river clay & had no idea how to fire it. Didn't know about temper, so the first one is probably going to crack, but we'll see!
Awesome, thanks
interesting test, I have my own supply of beeswax so thats what I would use but intriguing to see the flax oil and pine resin along side.
Thanks for sharing
The association of smells is learned. When I lived in MX for a while, I had to learn that the strange smell of the laundry and dish soaps, would eventually be associated with clean, but at first, it did not!
I have visited Mexico many times and totally understand that about the smell of Mexican cleaning products.
Flaxseed is the one of the three that is not only edible, but good for you. In the long run, that might be worth the extra time wiping off residue and drying in the sun (maybe a long dry time and not multiple coats is all that is required?). Earthen floors (dirt floors) are sealed with linseed over a long period of time, then you can mop them.
Anyway, it's very cool how they all worked.
Yes, very good and useful material
Its nice to see you two....doing something like this......its awesome
Thank you
I'll be watching for that subscriber milestone. Great content!
Thanks, probably late May or early June.
linseed oil actually hardens at room temperature after a few months. It has commonly been used as a sealant for centuries, especially for paintings.
Great, Andy!
Thanks from Vermont.
You're welcome
Hi Andy. Great video again and perfect timing with the content. After I had coffee in my just fired cup it felt kinda damp and sticky on the outside, now I will definitely seal it. Thank you for going through the trouble and sharing this informative video. Looking forward to the next one. 😊 Say hi to your wife it was great meeting her.
Glad to be of help. Thanks!
Thank you Andy! I'm working towards living off grid and I'll be making just about everything I need with the exception of solar and wind power. I've learned so much on your channel and I like that you are offering classes.
Thanks, I am glad you are finding my content helpful.
Thanks for a very interesting video. I was surprised that the linseed oil (aka Flaxseed oil) wasn't more effective. When I purchased my carbon steel wok the manufacturer recommended flaxseed oil to seal the steel. I've also used it on cast iron with great success - liberally coat the vessel then heat it to the smoke point and when it cools it is sealed very well. I kind of expected that stoneware would be the same. So, it was very interesting to see it wasn't as effective.
Wonderful video. I would recommend testing with a light tasting tea next time, like chamomile to really see if the flavor changed
13:15 I really enjoyed your honesty with yourself there. Our minds cannot be trusted
Wine with a little pine pitch sounds tasty.
Great videos and I liked your work a lot too. .. Retsina wine is flavoured with pine resin, perhaps it’s origin was in being tainted by its storage vessel and the taste then being acquired over time. Personally I like the taste of beeswax in modest amounts in honey and flaxseeds (linseed) are good in bread.
Yes, I have heard of pine resin flavored wine, that must have been how that started.
Very informative, enjoyed this video thoroughly. Thanks!
You're welcome
Congratulations on 100k subs. I am watching your videos after quite a long time and it's great.
Thank you
super well made video! love the time stamps and depth of testing 😊
Thanks
Just came across your channel. Really cool stuff!! Very practical too.
Thank you
Retsina is a Greek white resinated wine, which has been made for at least 2,000 years. Its unique flavor is said to have originated from the practice of sealing wine vessels, particularly amphorae, with Aleppo pine resin in ancient times. Wikipedia
Retsina is wine flavoured by the pitch in pine barrels... some people like it!
lol Smokey the Bear! Back when I was a firefighter, I had to wear the Smokey costume when I was a newbie and boy did it smell bad in that costume, plus it's hard to see where you're going and it's incredibly hot in there!
Still, from being a kid camping, I always douse my fire in ample water, so much so that the branches I cut to make a shelter over my fire at my fort in the woods started to grow again come spring. You know you've put your fire out well and good with water if cut branches start growing because of all the water.
So interesting to see this. I use natural beeswax to wax my thread for applique in quilting. Was almost going to get rid of it.
It's amazing stuff
If you have some sticky wooden drawers, apply beeswax to the runners helps.