All,
Sorry, crazy week here--little keyboard-time.
DW, samples I just sent you were "Real Stuff" (thin and less viscous) good to try painting on felt, and a tiny jar of genuine old "Stockholm Tar" (thicker nicer smelling for reference). The later was not from Auson, but from a UK veterinarian supply in the '90s, but smells the closest to the genuine old Swedish pitch. Auson products are all from China now, as there is no more destructive turpentine distilling in Sweden (or Scandinavia). The nice Chinese fellow (Mr.Wong?) at Auson explained that the "pine" family of trees used in China differ from those in N. Europe, hence the different consistency and smell. IOW the old stuff is simply no more. Auson currently sells a solid "pitch" too, and we've tried it. It's very soft, coarse and grainy with tons of impurities,, solids, "seeds and stems", and smells nothing like the old Swedish pitch.
As I got it from Rausch, the chunk "pine pitch" we loved was made up, mixed from "X" parts pine tar (aromatic/softener), and "Y" parts pine rosin. It was not cooked-down tar only, rather a tar and rosin blend. I've tried six ways for Sunday to get the tar to thicken on its own. In the end I just add it to chunk rosin and make my own "pitch" like Rausch described.
Jake, if your wax has that much "tack", that your sewing threads seize-up if you don't keep them moving briskly, I'd say it's just about perfect. Shoemakers' wax is an adhesive--not a lubricant. If you experience too much "tack", rub a light swipe of beeswax over your waxed-end so they won't bind mid-stitch. As you see/feel the wax draining off your thread as you sew, re-wax it every so often to keep it in the condition it was when you started (see Rees:1813).
Hemp vs. Flax--Hemp yarn was made from the hemp plant (cannabis) and flax from the flax plant--two different plants, two different fibers. Hemp was prized for millennia for nautical rope-making, sailcloth and canvas-weaving, shoe thread, etc. because it would not rot or degrade easily when wet. Flax, a much smoother fiber, looked nicer, but was not as durable. Sometime in the mid 20thc genuine hemp shoe thread began to go out of production, and coarse, unbleached (thus stronger) flax was re-named "hemp". The bleached white (thus weakened) flax was sold as "flax" or "linen" thread, the unbleached as "hemp".
With the current resurgence in real hemp for "green" textiles, we've been able to get some real hemp yarn for making threads from Eastern European sources, but like all fibers it's now processed on cotton machinery, and the long fiber staples (whence its inherent strength) are broken off too short, so it's still not quite "right", but better than flax/linen yarns when broken that short. We did find a woman to hand-spin us some long-staple hemp fiber yarn to test. It was around $30 for a 2 oz ball, but man alive is it strong.
Frank Jones might know.... years ago in the UK they made and sold nylon "bristles", 24 in a waxed paper packet. These were stiffer than soft ol' fishing line, and closer to 7"-8" long like real bristle. The end for wrapping was corrugated to better grip the taw of the thread. They are reusable (up to a point), and I'm still using ones I bought in the '80s-'90s. Tried various "wire" alternatives and didn't care for them. But, latest batch of real black 8" bristles from India we got last month were nigh on to $250 per kilo landed--so pretty much "museum demo use only" at that price, like so many other common (once) essentials for traditional shoe/bootmaking. Like it or not, what we're each doing, in our own school/genre, is becoming more "historical", experimental archaeology than anything else. Soon we can all be stuffed and mounted in a museum
