Cultivating fatwood?

[Mistwalker]

I've written a few articles and tutorials on forums, and in a couple of books, on finding and using pitch pine (fatwood) It does not have to be a stump, and the tree does not have to be cut down. When a pine tree dies standing the sap starts falling down through the tree and collects in the bases of the limbs and in the heart of the tree and you find a tree skeleton that looks like this. And the whole thing is fatwood.

These are what the old timers here always called simply "pine knots: but they are just fatwood, not actual knots

I always pick up a few small ones any time I'm out in the woods, just in case I need them for quick fire starting later.I have some in my garage that are ancient, and over a foot long and 4 and 5 inches in diameter

And they aren't just good for fire starting, with their weight and density they are excellent batons

 

[thebrain]

It was my understanding that the sap flows down to the bottom when a living tree dies like Mistwalker said , not up from the roots. If the tree falls then the fat wood would be on the side laying on the ground instead of if the base or stump. I think some sap would come up from the roots but it doesn't seem like it would be as concentrated as if it slowly drained by gravity. Someone should try to kill a fully living tree in the middle of summer and leave it standing to see what the results are after a few years time, I have no place to do this myself or I would have results to share by now.

 

[lambertiana]

It was my understanding that the sap flows down to the bottom when a living tree dies like Mistwalker said , not up from the roots. If the tree falls then the fat wood would be on the side laying on the ground instead of if the base or stump. I think some sap would come up from the roots but it doesn't seem like it would be as concentrated as if it slowly drained by gravity. Someone should try to kill a fully living tree in the middle of summer and leave it standing to see what the results are after a few years time, I have no place to do this myself or I would have results to share by now.

When collecting fatwood from Ponderosa pine in the middle elevations of the Sierra I look for stumps of trees that were cut down. Some of them are solid fatwood.

 

[Mistwalker]

It was my understanding that the sap flows down to the bottom when a living tree dies like Mistwalker said , not up from the roots. If the tree falls then the fat wood would be on the side laying on the ground instead of if the base or stump. I think some sap would come up from the roots but it doesn't seem like it would be as concentrated as if it slowly drained by gravity. Someone should try to kill a fully living tree in the middle of summer and leave it standing to see what the results are after a few years time, I have no place to do this myself or I would have results to share by now.

It doesn't go back up when the tree dies. It starts the process of draining down, but then the roots, the heart of the tree, and the base of theof the limbs become saturated and the moisture evaporates for the dead tree and the sap so the resin gets thicker and thicker until finally all that will be standing will be the resin rich skeletal core you can see up above, that's so saturated with pitch it cannot absorb moisture and stops rotting and develops a patina.

I joined BCUSA as Outrider years ago, and there is currently a thread in the "Fire" section called "Identifying and Using Fatwood" that I wrote 16 years ago, that I recently popped back up to the first page because I am in the process of re-shooting the images for it in much better quality since I lost the old images to photobucket. I can cross post it here if there is some interest. There doesn't seem to be anywhere near as much discussion here in the W&SS section as there used to be.