fatwood

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siguy

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Aug 26, 2006
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where do i find fatwood in the northeast US? i know what it is, resin impregnated heartwood, but i can't find any in my woods. am i just looking in the wrong place?

and, can i use pine resin instead? like when you cut off a big branch from an evergreen, and after a couple of years there is a huge buildup of resin at the cut.

thanks for the advice i am sure will come...
 
The resin as you know is the same stuff without the wood. Yes it will work.
Do you have any Jack Pine?
 
i don't know if i have any jack pine. let me look up some plant guides real quick...

EDIT:
as far as i can tell, i may be able to access some jack pine at my grandma's house at the holiday rendezvous. from the pictures i pulled up, i have plenty of spruce and some other kind of evergreen that i can't identify in plenty.
 
Look for dead pines where the limbs are still intact, but the trunk is rotted.
The limbs should come away from the trunk easily; this is one place to acquire fat wood. Some times it can be found at the store as a fire starter too in bundles.

Jack Pine range
banksiana1.jpg
 
There is a lot of fat wood stumps in the southeastern US, fatwood is very hard, dense, resin impregnated pine. I look for what looks like a half rotted pieces of stump sticking out of the ground when I do find them, kick it, if it is still very hard and heavy then it might be fatwood, take your knife or hatchet split off a piece and look at it and smell it, if it is heavy, and aromatic with pine and you can see little crystals of dried sap it is fatwood, it will burn hot for a long time and ignite easily with just an open flame. Chris
 
When I lived in South Arkansas and Mississippi we always found it in stumps. Once we found a stump nearly two feet tall that was so heavy we had to split it to move it. But we were in heaven!
 
i looked up commercial fatwood, and i think that it will be easier for me to simply buy a bundle of it for the time being. at the holiday rendezvouz, i will see about grabbing some resin from the trees in my grandma's woods.
 
I'm going out now to look for some today infact. My supply has run out. Last time I hit the jackpot and came away with about 30 pounds of it. That was my part. Three of us split it up!
 
Off topic a bit, what do you guys think about using pinecones? Many species are small enough so as not to take up too much space. They're usually very dry and have a bit of resin in them. Just a thought.
 
perhaps pinecones once they have been busted up and are a pile of flakes would be better, because they are more compact...
 
Dead pine stumps that are hard will have a lot of rich wood in it. If you want to narrow it down as to where to find it in your area, try this place below, tons of info. on wood stove and wood burning techniques etc., great place to get first hand info./advice on all aspects of wood burning.

Mods, remove link below if not allowed..........

http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/



Robbie Roberson ;)
 
got a pound or so today out of a dead stump about a foot in diameter either longleaf or sandhill pine stump. It's really wet though so im drying it out. not sure how good its going to be. it's sappy but nothing like the last stuff i had.
The good stuff should repel water better than what i've got it should be almost waterproof this isnt.
 
i found some small peices of fatwood in the knots in some pine board scrap, so i popped them out by wedging a nail between the knots and the wood. i burned a little peice, and it burned hot, with a little black smoke trail coming from the tip of the bright yellow flame
 
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