Casting Wax Experiment (with Mastodons!)
Last year, walking down the street with my daughter, she picked up one of these big seed pods (initially thinking someone had dropped their wallet).
When we cracked it open, we found these big seeds inside.
We also found that the seeds were surrounded by a sticky, resinous gum.
So it got me thinking... Maybe the gum could work as a substitute for the plant resin in our casting wax! It's always very interesting in the Fire craft to try to make the ingredients and elements yourself, to go as basic as possible, rather than buying stuff off the shelf. How cool would it be if this goo worked?
Our normal casting wax recipe is, by weight:
Now, these seed pods are from the Kentucky Coffee Tree (Gymnocladus dioicus). It's a lovely tree, and in the fall - even in winter - it really stands out because these giant pods tend to cling to the branches when the leaves are all down.
Apparently, early European settlers in the area used to roast up the seeds (which are toxic if not roasted) and then grind them for a coffee substitute, hence the "coffee tree" name. If that is true, I have no doubt that the drink was disgusting. But then again, life was really tough in those days, so maybe by comparison it was actually mildly pleasant. Maybe. Or else early European settlers just didn't know what coffee was supposed to taste like. Like the people who brew the coffee at Robin's Donuts in Fort Frances, Ontario.
But I digress.
Back to the tree, because it gets more interesting. According to one theory of evolutionary biology, the seed pods are a sign that reveals the existence of remarkable, ancient beasts that used to roam these parts. Trees of Ontario explains, "Because no native herbivores consume the toxic Kentucky Coffee-tree seeds – and since elephants devour similar seed pods in great quantities – it has been hypothesized that the now-extinct Mastodon may have consumed Kentucky Coffee-tree pods. In fact, Kentucky Coffee-tree may have evolved its unique seeds, which seem unpalatable to native animals, specifically for Mastodon-assisted dispersal."
I did a film on "Rewilding" that touched on this theme a few years ago, and you can stream it on CBC Nature of Things (only if you're in Canada). But more to the point, Connie Barlow wrote about the idea of these "ghosts of evolution" in her book of the same name. If you want to read an article instead, Janzen and Martin wrote this seminal paper on the idea, back in 1982. (As an added bonus, if you read it and you're not a biologist, you get to learn the word, "gomphothere.")
The idea is that things like this giant seed pod, and even the avocado (with its giant seed pit) are "evolutionary anachronisms" because their characteristics are best explained in light of species that are no longer alive. That is, it is thought that this tree evolved to have its seeds dispersed by a mastodon, for example, because no animals around these parts today could ingest such a hard, leathery pod (and then scatter the undigested seeds in its feces). So because the mastodon and other megafauna are gone, the Kentucky Coffee Tree is a tree now out of sync with the world around it.
(I don't know enough about evolutionary biology to to be able to comment on the theory. If you do, by all means, comment!)
In any case, back to the Fire Craft: a number of months ago we tried to use the Coffee-tree resin while cooking up a new batch of casting wax. We assembled all the ingredients in the pot, and heated it up in a bain marie.
We stirred and stirred. The mix got hotter and hotter. The beeswax and paraffin melted, but the coffee tree gum remained black and gooey.
We stirred some more. And heated some more. And stirred some more.
Still gooey but not melting. Finally, after more than an hour, we gave up.
So we roasted some up and ground it down and drank it.
Just kidding.
The new wax formula was an experiment, and it failed. Clearly the melting point of this stuff is much higher, and too hot for mixing with beeswax, which could explode if overheated. Back to using damar resin.
But now every time I see a Kentucky Coffee-tree in the city, I get to do some time-travelling, and imagine giant mastodons roaming down the street near my daughter's school, munching on coffee-tree snacks.
We also found that the seeds were surrounded by a sticky, resinous gum.
So it got me thinking... Maybe the gum could work as a substitute for the plant resin in our casting wax! It's always very interesting in the Fire craft to try to make the ingredients and elements yourself, to go as basic as possible, rather than buying stuff off the shelf. How cool would it be if this goo worked?
Our normal casting wax recipe is, by weight:
Bees wax 70%
Solid paraffin 20%
Plant resin 10% (e.g. damar gum)
Now, these seed pods are from the Kentucky Coffee Tree (Gymnocladus dioicus). It's a lovely tree, and in the fall - even in winter - it really stands out because these giant pods tend to cling to the branches when the leaves are all down.
Apparently, early European settlers in the area used to roast up the seeds (which are toxic if not roasted) and then grind them for a coffee substitute, hence the "coffee tree" name. If that is true, I have no doubt that the drink was disgusting. But then again, life was really tough in those days, so maybe by comparison it was actually mildly pleasant. Maybe. Or else early European settlers just didn't know what coffee was supposed to taste like. Like the people who brew the coffee at Robin's Donuts in Fort Frances, Ontario.
But I digress.
Back to the tree, because it gets more interesting. According to one theory of evolutionary biology, the seed pods are a sign that reveals the existence of remarkable, ancient beasts that used to roam these parts. Trees of Ontario explains, "Because no native herbivores consume the toxic Kentucky Coffee-tree seeds – and since elephants devour similar seed pods in great quantities – it has been hypothesized that the now-extinct Mastodon may have consumed Kentucky Coffee-tree pods. In fact, Kentucky Coffee-tree may have evolved its unique seeds, which seem unpalatable to native animals, specifically for Mastodon-assisted dispersal."
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| image by Charles R. Knight. |
I did a film on "Rewilding" that touched on this theme a few years ago, and you can stream it on CBC Nature of Things (only if you're in Canada). But more to the point, Connie Barlow wrote about the idea of these "ghosts of evolution" in her book of the same name. If you want to read an article instead, Janzen and Martin wrote this seminal paper on the idea, back in 1982. (As an added bonus, if you read it and you're not a biologist, you get to learn the word, "gomphothere.")
The idea is that things like this giant seed pod, and even the avocado (with its giant seed pit) are "evolutionary anachronisms" because their characteristics are best explained in light of species that are no longer alive. That is, it is thought that this tree evolved to have its seeds dispersed by a mastodon, for example, because no animals around these parts today could ingest such a hard, leathery pod (and then scatter the undigested seeds in its feces). So because the mastodon and other megafauna are gone, the Kentucky Coffee Tree is a tree now out of sync with the world around it.
(I don't know enough about evolutionary biology to to be able to comment on the theory. If you do, by all means, comment!)
In any case, back to the Fire Craft: a number of months ago we tried to use the Coffee-tree resin while cooking up a new batch of casting wax. We assembled all the ingredients in the pot, and heated it up in a bain marie.
We stirred and stirred. The mix got hotter and hotter. The beeswax and paraffin melted, but the coffee tree gum remained black and gooey.
We stirred some more. And heated some more. And stirred some more.
Still gooey but not melting. Finally, after more than an hour, we gave up.
So we roasted some up and ground it down and drank it.
Just kidding.
The new wax formula was an experiment, and it failed. Clearly the melting point of this stuff is much higher, and too hot for mixing with beeswax, which could explode if overheated. Back to using damar resin.
But now every time I see a Kentucky Coffee-tree in the city, I get to do some time-travelling, and imagine giant mastodons roaming down the street near my daughter's school, munching on coffee-tree snacks.
[image from New York State Museum.]
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