Watch that you don’t confuse pine tar with pine pitch. It is the pitch you want, which is a slightly flexable solid. Tar is a liquid and must be cooked down to get rid of the terps, and can be over cooked and ruined. Auson produces naval pitch, which is what I got. It comes in a 25 kg. block. This was used on ships decking and hardens to a non-sticky surface. I mix it 50/50 with rosin from rodeo suppliers and add 10% bees wax and lanolin, which is technically a wax, not fat, to soften the mix. Melt the rosin in a crock pot on low or double boiler, add pitch and heat until melted, then thee bees wax and lanolin. Stir well and take out a small handful (with a ladle) at a time and drop into 120 degree F. water. It can burn you like nothing else and must cool to a point you can handle it, but still soft. The mixture is pulled and folded over and repulled and folded for 3 or 4 minutes, like pulling taffy. This yields the proper consistancy and completely mixes the ingrediants. The “Crispin Colloquy” archive has a great thread of this, with pictures. Good luck with your batch.
Hey thanks for the info, everyone.
Think I’ll stick with tape after all. Made some reed adjustments and now the back D falls into tune after a few minutes of playing - it’s nice to be able to just rip the tape off when that happens…
I will keep the wax ideas logged away, though…you know how it goes with reeds…
-Joey
Many pipers live well outside the uilleann pipes’ “native habitat” (western Europe), often in places where the annual temperature may swing by some 100°, and humidity ranges up and down from 15%to 100%. There hasn’t been a chanter/reed made that cannot be somehow moved by such conditions, IMO.
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Beeswax (as mentioned) works, but if you want easily adjustable tape, I’ve found that 3m Transpore (medical) tape works very well and so far hasn’t left a residue over the years I’ve used it.