MacHete
Hair Cropper & Chipmunk Wrangler
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2000
- Messages
- 2,559
This pine was taken out by a large oak that was taken out by a windstorm about 2-3years ago.
The deadbeat that was living in my brother-in-law's house at the time cut up the oak for firewood, but left this precariously leaning over the access road to the old cemetary. (He also left all the "unusable" trimmings from the oak spread out all over the road -making it impassable to folks visiting the graves of their dearly departed.) :grumpy:
There has been no new growth on the tree since it fell, and the roots are still mostly anchored in the ground.
Here, Code uses his keen nose to search for signs of fatwood:
The bark peeled off easily to reveal wet, but not sticky wood. Shavings did burn, but not like fatwood.
So here are my questions:
How long does it take fatwood to form?
Must it form in a stump? Will taking this big ol' natural deadfall trap down help the process?
When I take it down, should I wait until autumn when the sap falls again, or might the tree be dead enough that sap isn't rising very far anyway?
Might there be some usable fatwood deeper in the heartwood already?
How much of the roots typically convert to fatwood?
Thanks for your help!
The deadbeat that was living in my brother-in-law's house at the time cut up the oak for firewood, but left this precariously leaning over the access road to the old cemetary. (He also left all the "unusable" trimmings from the oak spread out all over the road -making it impassable to folks visiting the graves of their dearly departed.) :grumpy:
There has been no new growth on the tree since it fell, and the roots are still mostly anchored in the ground.
Here, Code uses his keen nose to search for signs of fatwood:
The bark peeled off easily to reveal wet, but not sticky wood. Shavings did burn, but not like fatwood.
So here are my questions:
How long does it take fatwood to form?
Must it form in a stump? Will taking this big ol' natural deadfall trap down help the process?
When I take it down, should I wait until autumn when the sap falls again, or might the tree be dead enough that sap isn't rising very far anyway?
Might there be some usable fatwood deeper in the heartwood already?
How much of the roots typically convert to fatwood?
Thanks for your help!
but I would guess that the roots continue to pump the resin through most of the tree therefore making it not as saturated as fatwood. If you leave some of the stump and check it next year, or at least a few months later, you may have better fatwood. The more sap in a smaller area, the better fatwood it will be. There may be better fatwood at the heart of the tree near the base. There could also be some pretty good stuff down in the roots. I have found some very good, highly saturated fatwood actually below ground level but I had to peel away a lot of punky wood. :thumbup: