Best types of wood to make Fuzz sticks???

BBQ BOY

BBQ BOY

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Green wood or dry wood?
I was in my yard today and was playing around with down limbs in my years. I do not live near a wooded area so I can only practice with whats around me. I would rather not kill a good tree or cut limbs off a tree to practice but I found that most limbs were so dang hard that I could not make fuzz sticks. I live in the Southeast and most of what I have in my yard are pines, sweet gum and water oaks.
So, I need to work on my low level skills. Any good videos that can help me out?
 
I am not sure there is much reason to make fuzz sticks with green wood (since the point is to make fire building easier). That said, I can make some awesome looking curlies with green wood;)

I think the answer to the "best wood" question is going to change with location. My suggestion would be to get a VERY sharp knife and work on making REALLY thin shavings that help you to build a fire. Ending up with a nice fuzz stick that look like Shirley Temple is nice for impressing your friends...but the real point is making fire, so a pile of short curly shavings is just as good in my findings;)

Edit to add:

I have been enjoying this guy's videos lately. If you start watching at 2:59 you will see what he does (and I do) to make shavings for fire building. It is fast and works great on almost any dry wood I find around here.
[video=youtube_share;v_iWEuJC4ak]http://youtu.be/v_iWEuJC4ak[/video]

Apologies if you JUST want to make fuzz sticks. I am assuming you want to know for fire building purposes.
 
I would agree with Unit above. Fuzz sticks might be fun to make if you are so inclined, but shavings work as well for the purpose of firestarting. The only real utility I note of a fuzzstick is that they make good pot scrubbers. Making them does help one practice finer knife control skills though.
 
Thanks for the reply and video. Yes, I want to improve my fuzz sticks for fire making purposes, I really need to hone my skills across the board since I do not get out anymore.
 
BBQ BOY said:
I really need to hone my skills across the board since I do not get out anymore.
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That is pretty easy to fix;)

You would be surprised at what you can learn in your own back yard. Heck, I have spread a tarp in the living room and dragged in a few sticks in the past (just dont light 'em unless you have a proper fire place).

OTOH, heading into the woods is truly good for the soul. Don't rush it, just make time here and there and just play around. The more you get out there the more you realize "easy" ways to accomplish things.

I do not know much about survival or bushcraft but what I do know is that "easy" beats "pretty".
 
Make sure the wood is straight grained as possible. Trying to make fuzz sticks through knots is about impossible. Technique has a lot to do with it as well. I tend to rest one end of the stick on the ground, keep my arm straight, and use my weight as much as possible instead of trying to muscle through.

Fuzzies look pretty but any more I do shavings instead. They work better if you ask me, and are easier to make.
 
rocketbomb said:
Make sure the wood is straight grained as possible. Trying to make fuzz sticks through knots is about impossible. Technique has a lot to do with it as well. I tend to rest one end of the stick on the ground, keep my arm straight, and use my weight as much as possible instead of trying to muscle through.

Fuzzies look pretty but any more I do shavings instead. They work better if you ask me, and are easier to make.
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It is a neat trick to make a stick fuzzy for it's entire length, sort of like peeling an apple or potato and keeping the peel in one piece. And it develops dexterity with a knife.

As for finding materials, look for lots being cleared for construction and even trees being trimmed in neighbor's yards. See a broken limb hanging from Mrs. Jones' tree? Offer to trim it off for her then take it home. You can also buy the little bundles of oak firewood at a lot of convenience stores to practice with..
 
One of the nice things about fuzz sticks in terms of fire starting that I didn't see mentioned here is that the "fuzz" tinder leads straight into the kindling with a physical bond, rather than just being adjacent to it, as is the case with most kindling/tinder. FWIW
 
I agree. Fuzz sticks can be a real pain to make depending on what woods you have available to you. A lot of the videos I see on this forum are of pretty fuzz sticks made from 2x4s. That's nice. But I've yet to see a 2x4 laying out in the woods.
 
With some practice you can make fuzz sticks from any dry wood, but softer woods like pine, spruce and poplar work the best for me. A sharp, thin bladed knife works well, a mora or SAK is what I normally use. A couple GOOD fuzzsticks works fine to start a fire, but so do half a dozen not so good ones :)
 
I need to work on my fuzz sticks. I don't seem to have an issue making thin curly shavings, but I have a hard time keeping them all together. Shavings work great but I think that the fuzzies hanging on looks really cool.
 
My wife has recently been practicing making fuzz sticks for our woodstove. At first she nearly gave up saying that all she could make were shavings. After trying quite a few of my knives she eventually found one that allowed her to make some pretty damn good fuzz sticks....I'm going to do a thread on this soon.....the knife suprised me !!!!
 
pitdog said:
My wife has recently been practicing making fuzz sticks for our woodstove. At first she nearly gave up saying that all she could make were shavings. After trying quite a few of my knives she eventually found one that allowed her to make some pretty damn good fuzz sticks....I'm going to do a thread on this soon.....the knife suprised me !!!!
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What knife is it?
 
I probably need to work more on my practicing. All my spare time lately has been taken up in the knife shop.
My wood I have been using is some seasoned Cherry, may not be the best choice (very knotty what I have). I do have some Birch that works nicely, but I'm letting it season a while longer.

I am anxious to see the knife that works for her.
 
DrivebyTrucker said:
I agree. Fuzz sticks can be a real pain to make depending on what woods you have available to you. A lot of the videos I see on this forum are of pretty fuzz sticks made from 2x4s. That's nice. But I've yet to see a 2x4 laying out in the woods.
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I have almost no experience with fuzz sticks, but I should practice anyway I suppose. The thing for me is, if I need a fire it's probably damn cold. And real cold makes it hard to manipulate with fingers. I really try to get things going quickly at -25. I will not put fuzz sticks down out of my own ignorance though. I'll try and see how workable they are for me. May be the cats pajamas, won't know until I fool around with them a bit. I'll use whatever is localy dead.
 
I make alot of *partial* fuzz-sticks and those are usually mixed in with even more shavings.

In perfect conditions, with all the time in the world to find a nice, straight length of branch, etc., model fuzz-sticks can be made nicely from both soft or hard woods. However, dense (hard) wood w/fibrous grain is going to challenge your knife edge more than soft, smooth-grained/porous species.
 
unit said:
"easy" beats "pretty"
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My motto all the way through high school. ;) :D :D

For slicing or push cuts, especially in rigid materials like wood and stiff crunchy vegetables, my experience is that thin stock blades (1/16" and less) are much more efficient than thick bladed beasts (3/16" and up). The thin blade displacing the cut material so minimally allows more of your applied force to get transmitted to the extreme cutting edge of the blade rather than getting dissipated trying to lever the already-cut material out of the way. Hence the utility of the humble and ubiquitous Moras, which offer IME very decent slicing ability and what is quite possibly the highest "bang for your buck" ratio in knifedom.
 
fmajor007 said:
I make alot of *partial* fuzz-sticks and those are usually mixed in with even more shavings.

In perfect conditions, with all the time in the world to find a nice, straight length of branch, etc., model fuzz-sticks can be made nicely from both soft or hard woods. However, dense (hard) wood w/fibrous grain is going to challenge your knife edge more than soft, smooth-grained/porous species.
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Makes sense to me. I like comments such as this because not everything goes perfectly out there. That's part of the challenge for me I suppose.
 
RokJok said:
My motto all the way through high school. ;) :D :D

For slicing or push cuts, especially in rigid materials like wood and stiff crunchy vegetables, my experience is that thin stock blades (1/16" and less) are much more efficient than thick bladed beasts (3/16" and up). The thin blade displacing the cut material so minimally allows more of your applied force to get transmitted to the extreme cutting edge of the blade rather than getting dissipated trying to lever the already-cut material out of the way. Hence the utility of the humble and ubiquitous Moras, which offer IME very decent slicing ability and what is quite possibly the highest "bang for your buck" ratio in knifedom.
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I understand the thinner blade easier slicing concept. I tend to be a larger knife guy overall, but often pack a small and large blade outdoors at the same time. Or a hawk etc. for the larger blade. This thread has me wanting to take a few cutting tools out and randomly see how they perform for me. I'll just grab local dead fall. We basically already know, but what the hey. It gets my odoriferous carcass outside.:D
 
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