What is rosin made out of?
Rosincolophon or colophony, as it is known to luthiersis a resin collected from one of 110 different types of pine tree throughout Europe, Asia, North America, and New Zealand. The name colophony harkens back to the ancient city of Colophon in Lydia, which produced a high-grade of colophony originally used to create smoke for both medical and magical procedures. Rosin is drawn directly from living trees in a tapping processmuch like the way that maple syrup is collected (the process in no way harms the tree). First, a small area of the trees outer bark is removed. Then the tree is fitted with a drip channel and collection container. Finally, the tree is cut with V-shaped grooves about 1 cm (.39 inch) wide just above the drip channel and container. These marks induce the flow of resin into the container (the cuts must be renewed every five days or so to ensure the continuous flow of tree resin). After the resin is collected, it is sometimes mixed with other tree sapsusually from larches
