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Well as of late I have had many individuals interested in this method of doing trim wraps. This by no means is something I just conjured up. It was shown to me by a customer when I had my fly shop. Anyway I will try to pass it along, so here we go.

Today I decided I would do this from the very beginning, it seems that most of the questions were "where do I get some pine pitch. Well I was on my way to see if I could find some at a music shop, but I thought that there were a ton of Christmas trees in a pile at the park near the house which I was sure were oozing pine pitch! So I stopped to check, sure enuf they were! Just not enough. So off to the music store I went. But wait! Right there next to the car wash! Some pine trees which had been trimmed some time ago, that's where the pitch comes out where there is a wound! So here is what I got!

I was not prepared to harvest pine pitch and didn't have a container, just an old name tag! But this works because it shows you that this is not that hard. Off to the house to make up a bunch of this great elixir!
You will need a couple of other ingredients and here they are:

I like to stir this stuff with a screwdriver because I can kinda chop and break up the harder pine pitch or rosin. Here is the first step:

Just enough turpentine to cover the pine pitch or maybe less, you can always add more but if you use too much turpentine you'd better get back to that tree! Well I stirred and poked and broke and heated with my heat gun (pretty safe I think) and finally got it all mixed up. I let it settle a while and poured off the top of it. Now this stuff has to settle for a couple of days to get really clear. All the funky stuff settles to the bottom. Here is the first pour:

Into the Delorian and fast forward a couple of days and here is the finished product:

Before we get to doing some wraps let make some super sharp Xacto blades out of double edge razor blades. All you need is some blades a holder and some scissors.

Cut along the red lines to get 4 blades out of one razor blade like so:

To the wrapping table! And here it is:

Note the piece of tape with the red circle drawn around it, now look closer and you will see a drop of pine pitch and turpentine on it! Also notice on the left is a cloth and a squeeze bottle of denatured alcohol near it. This is used to clean the pine pitch and turps off your fingers after you apply it to the thread.
So now just touch the drop of pine pitch with your index finger and then touch that with your thumb. That is all you need, you can now just rub the silk with your index finger and thumb once toward the spools of thread and then back, look at the arrows:

Now you can put the pull loop on the blank, clean the excess off your fingers (this stuff is sticky) and start your wrap, this one here is 2 turns. You will immediately find that the thread does not slip. After however number of turns you want, cut the thread and push it through the loop. Pull it through and pull snug. Here's a wrap with the long tags before cutting:

Adjust, pull snug and trim. You will notice how well this thread sticks, and don't worry about a little pine pitch that may get on the blank, it is compatible with varnish. Here is where you will really appreciate those nice sharp blades you made earlier.

A little practice with this and you will be amazed how well you can do. I know you all can do the wraps this just helps so that they don't come undone just because you look at them. You really need to give this a try, you won't believe it until you do!

And the finished product, notice the 2 turn wrap out there by itself, look kinda lonely:



As always I hope this help someone, or at least amuses you.

Joe E. Arguello
Wanna-be Rod Builder