Collecting fatwood

Gaurdian_A1

Gaurdian_A1

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How many of you actually go out and find your own fatwood VS. buying it at a store? ...Obviously B5 does LOL, but what about the rest of you?

I go out and find fatwood stumps every chance i get, and i document where i found them so that when i run out, or if i just want some more i know exactly where to go. I never have any more than 4 or 5 chunks of the stuff at any given time, but i always send some to my bro who lives in edmonton, He's a B.C. boy stuck in a big city...the fatwood keeps him sane. LOL

SO fess up fatwood hunters, who does and who doesnt and why!

-Gaurdian_A1
 
Ontario Rat 5, fatwood,jet lighter, pine needles
DavidsCamera003.jpg

DavidsCamera001.jpg


The pictures are not very good, my camera sucks. Excellent fatwood though!
 
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when in the pnw, i always try to get into the woods
(sometimes im there for months and get lots of woods time in-sometimes only there for a few days...iffy for woods time in that case)
and ifn im in the woods in the pnw, im always on the lookout for fatwood.
not really that hard to find there.
have even been successful, while driving to see some old clearcut
and tromp around a few and find fatwood.
i couldnt SEE the fatwood from the road, just the stumps, and from the age figured it was a good bet.
peace
 
Around here they do sell it and some folks make some extra cash collecting it but unless you are physically unable or just not inclined I don't know why you would buy, it is rare to get more than 100 yards off road and not find some.
 
I like to find the stuff myself. I am no Bushman5 but I do have a nice pile at home!! :D:D
 
I plan to map every fatwood stump I find on a GPS, entered as a point of interest into the GPS.
 
I don;t think I've ever used fatwood... (blasphemy I know) still managed to get all my fires lit though...
 
I have plenty of fatwood currently, but it is store bought, so it didn't come with an education. I still feel unsure about exactly where to look for fatwood. I live in the PNW, so there is no shortage of stumps. When I have probed, they are alternately rotted punk or steel I-beams! On bowhunting trips I haven't been willing to make excessive noise to tear stumps apart and I haven't always had the most robust of tools with me.

I'm itching to get out with the intent of learning what to look for, and how to mine fatwood in the field.

So there are plenty of stumps. I assume that only a few are good fatwood sources. Can you tell by looking or is probing necessary? (Details please!)

Bushie, Pit or others: What "club" do you reach for to break apart a stump. I know Joe uses an old baseball bat to smash pines back east, but from what little probing I have done, it looks like a chopper that can handle some prying is in order. I recently acquired a FFBM in trade, but it has been out being fitted with new pants. I hope to get it back today and want to break it in properly.

Bushie, I LOVED the pictures of that deep amber heart-fatwood. was that deep inside the stump? Was it from one considered old growth?

Knowing about fatwood is great. Having some in my kit is wonderful. Being able to identify and harvest in the field could be a lifesaver.

Thanks.
 
We have 60 acres behind our house that is mostly pines. You can't walk through the property without tripping over the stuff!!!:D
 
I've searched high and low, but there's not a single fatwood stump in my neighborhood. No Birch, either.

The only fatwood I've ever had was some that Brother Mistwalker sent me (thanks, Mist).

I do have the fuzzy stuff from palm trees, though. It doesn't work as well as fatwood, that's true, but I have a lot of it around here.
 
Pritch said:
I have plenty of fatwood currently, but it is store bought, so it didn't come with an education. I still feel unsure about exactly where to look for fatwood. I live in the PNW, so there is no shortage of stumps. When I have probed, they are alternately rotted punk or steel I-beams! On bowhunting trips I haven't been willing to make excessive noise to tear stumps apart and I haven't always had the most robust of tools with me.

I'm itching to get out with the intent of learning what to look for, and how to mine fatwood in the field.

So there are plenty of stumps. I assume that only a few are good fatwood sources. Can you tell by looking or is probing necessary? (Details please!)

Bushie, Pit or others: What "club" do you reach for to break apart a stump. I know Joe uses an old baseball bat to smash pines back east, but from what little probing I have done, it looks like a chopper that can handle some prying is in order. I recently acquired a FFBM in trade, but it has been out being fitted with new pants. I hope to get it back today and want to break it in properly.

Bushie, I LOVED the pictures of that deep amber heart-fatwood. was that deep inside the stump? Was it from one considered old growth?

Knowing about fatwood is great. Having some in my kit is wonderful. Being able to identify and harvest in the field could be a lifesaver.

Thanks.
Click to expand...


I always do a quick cut & sniff test when i find a potential fatwood stump...if it looks and smells good, its harvesting time.


i generally lop off packable pieces with a folding saw, then use a chopper knife to clean off the outside waste. (mossy bits, non fatwood bark/wood etc)

once at home i crack a few cold beers and then process the fatwood into long square pieces. Once i'm at that stage i saw to 4 - 5" lengths, and some i split even thinner. All the ends are chamfered with a small knife.

all the waste from processing goes into the patio burner.

Pritch, that deep red amber fatwood was heartwood from a stump in a stand of douglas firs. The stump was 98% rotted and barely visible. I didn't even need to cut it from the stump, i just picked it up from the ground in the rotted stump. A quick cut and sniff test with a knife and then i cleaned it up.
 
Pritch said:
I have plenty of fatwood currently, but it is store bought, so it didn't come with an education. I still feel unsure about exactly where to look for fatwood. I live in the PNW, so there is no shortage of stumps. When I have probed, they are alternately rotted punk or steel I-beams! On bowhunting trips I haven't been willing to make excessive noise to tear stumps apart and I haven't always had the most robust of tools with me.

I'm itching to get out with the intent of learning what to look for, and how to mine fatwood in the field.

So there are plenty of stumps. I assume that only a few are good fatwood sources. Can you tell by looking or is probing necessary? (Details please!)

Bushie, Pit or others: What "club" do you reach for to break apart a stump. I know Joe uses an old baseball bat to smash pines back east, but from what little probing I have done, it looks like a chopper that can handle some prying is in order. I recently acquired a FFBM in trade, but it has been out being fitted with new pants. I hope to get it back today and want to break it in properly.

Bushie, I LOVED the pictures of that deep amber heart-fatwood. was that deep inside the stump? Was it from one considered old growth?

Knowing about fatwood is great. Having some in my kit is wonderful. Being able to identify and harvest in the field could be a lifesaver.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I can tell by looking, and once you find it a few times you will be able to also. It's all in the way the harder parts of it wear and weather. Also, I prefer a big chopper, or at least a heavy bladed knife. I know Joe has fun beating on it and all but I find that noisy and to be honest annoying in a tiresome sort of way...not to mention a lot of what I find is as hard as any bat and if I didn't just break the bat people would hear me harvesting from a couple of miles away :)
 
Bushman5 said:
I always do a quick cut & sniff test when i find a potential fatwood stump...if it looks and smells good, its harvesting time.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this. I'd hate to waste all my energy on the wrong stumps. Can you articulate what makes a stump "look" right?

mistwalker said:
I can tell by looking, and once you find it a few times you will be able to also.
Click to expand...

This is what I'm looking for. Once I have seen it, and know what I'm looking for, I'm sure it will suddenly be all over the place. Kind of like pattern recognition with game. Your brain now knows what to look for.
 
I always thought that fatwood comes only from the stump of a specific kind of southern pine tree. :confused: Or can it be any pine? Even the northern ones. I need to know and learn. :)
 
Pritch said:
This is what I'm looking for. Once I have seen it, and know what I'm looking for, I'm sure it will suddenly be all over the place. Kind of like pattern recognition with game. Your brain now knows what to look for.
Click to expand...

Exactly, I can post clear pics until I'm exhausted....I've done several threads on recognition on different forums now...but it won't really click until you see it first hand in different forms. I'll try to send a couple of pieces that tell a story...whenever I actually make it to the p.o. :)

.
 
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