Cutler’s resin

Pardon me, as I jot down a recipe. Cutler’s resin is 8 oz pine pitch, 1/4 cup carnauba wax and 4 oz of beeswax, melted together in a double boiler and used hot. Mark Marsay wrote on the oldtools mailing list:

I usually use cutlers resin when attaching handles to blades — seems to work better than epoxy with the marking knives and various odd shaped scraper knives and chip carving knives I sometimes make.

Someone asked why this concoction is better than epoxy. Mark gave his reasons:

Well, apart from the galootishness of it, it is probably the best glue for attaching dissimilar materials I have come across. It holds like mad, yet has enough flex to allow differential expansion, and it doesn’t creep, allowing you to use it on bone or ivory without staining. It is also a huge amount easier to clean up runs and squelches than epoxy is. As you are in the UK, you can get pine pitch from Baldwins, just off the Elephant and Castle. … BTW, Baldwins are also good for most natural colouring agents - I get all my alkanet and logwood from them!