Fatwood

SkunkWerX, sorry I took so long to answer. I thank you for your advice.

I just use a tiny piece of this wood to start fires, maybe half inch wide by 2 inch long, then followed by a roaring hot fire.

I just cleaned my chimney after burning about a month or more and just got about a quart jar of fine creosote out of about 20 ft of pipe.

The stump I am using off of I found out was left as a stump about thirty years ago. It was a rather large white pine my wifes uncle cut and used for siding on his house.

When I first spotted this stump, I noticed it because it was very grey looking and large. The center is rotten and filled with rich dirt and moss, but the outside 5 inch thick stump is so hard the chain saw actually strained cutting through it.

It is not sticky at all, the wood is more like kerosene, kind of greasy. The smell is very strong, especially when burning. This is not anything like sticky pine sap, not at all.

I am simply amazed at the properties in this wood, it would no doubt save your life if you could find one in a survival situation.

I timed a burn with a 2 inch long, by 1 inch wide, by 1/4 thick piece, it burned for 5 minutes easily.

When you go in the woods, you should scan the ground for only "grey" colored stumps, this will narrow the search time down.

And when you find a stump, use your knife to try to slice some of that grey color off the side, you'll be surprised how hard it is to do if it's true fat wood.

The picture Runningboar posted looks to be an exact specimen........great picture !


Robbie Roberson ;)
 
Robbie Roberson said:
It is not sticky at all, the wood is more like kerosene, kind of greasy. The smell is very strong, especially when burning. This is not anything like sticky pine sap, not at all.
Click to expand...

Exactly, the wood does feel greasy and not at all like fresh pine sap, and you are right all of the stumps I have found are grey. I have never seen one rotted in the middle though, that is interesting, I guess the tree died before the whole stump could turn. Chris
 
Good info Robbie :thumbup:
Just wanted to be sure you weren't clogging the ol pipe! ;)

I was out splitting & stacking firewood thinking about checking on my dead pines, I'll get back out there in a bit and see just what they are made of.

You know that silvery-Gray color is a great indicator!
 
Another alternative is to use Esbit fuel tablets. Same idea, just chemicals rather than wood-- with consistent quality and waterproof. For a really quick and dirty fire starter, take the Esbit tab, put a dollop of alcohol gel hand cleaner on it and spark it with your firesteel or just the sparkwheel on your lighter. Esbit burns at 1400F, so it will get some pretty cruddy wood going.
 
Hey Guys..

Dale..

The only problem with Esbit and Triox tabs is that is their package leaks, they can deteriorate or more like evaporate over time...

I've had several boxes of Triox where one of the tablets were simply dust..

The triox will take a spark from a ferro rod...

The nice thing about fatwood is that it will stay the same year after year after year..It's waterproof and highly flammable...

ttyle

Eric
O/ST
 
To think I didn't even know about fatwood. I'm going to have to go looking. At the very least, I own about 5 acres of timberland...I should take a slow walk around.

You'd think an old country boy would have heard of this before...
 
Hey Dale..

Agreed....

This sort of gear needs to be gone through at least once every year...

As for the Esbit fuel..
I believe it is what is known a Hex (Heximine) or something like that...

I have limited use with the stuff..
All I remember about it is that it stinks,, as does Triox when it burns..

I always wonder what the fumes off this shit is doing to our food...

I have an Esbit stove,, but starting to prefer my alcohol stove for cooking.. A little bit more of a pain,, but I feel better about it then these fuel things...

Nothing beats the campfire though...:)

I recently found an old firekit with a "Scout" model firesteel in it that was about half way corroded...

Yup,, this kind of gear needs to really be watched..

On the other hand,, I cut my finger a little while ago and found a bandaid in an old hunting wallet that had to be colse to 20 years old..
Still sticky and worked perfectly..

Strange Eh !!

ttyle

Eric
O/ST
 
Interesting find today.:)

Went to check on whats left of my big fatwood stump, since we have been discussing it.

My stump is still there, no change at all, ready to be used.

I thought I would look around for another strump and found one about 100 yards away. This one is small, about 1 ft. through and 8 inches tall.
It is silver grey in color, with tints of green caused from some moss. The odd part is that lying right next to this fatwood stump was a piece of the trunk about 2 ft long.

This trunk was cut off from the original stump, and it too is a loaded rich piece of fat wood. In other words, the trunk, which was laying on the ground next to the fatwood stump is just as rich as the stump it's self.

I can't tell by looking at the cuts if both stump and trunk were cut at the same time or not, they both appear to look exactly the same.

If they were both cut at the same time, how can the trunk have as much resin content as the stump ? I took samples from both and both burn exactly the same, and are a rich red color just as the other fat wood I have seen.

If the tree was cut leaving an extra long trunk, then it too was cut down on the same day, then it looks like the trunk would not contain fatwood, only the stump.

This could only be true if the roots keep making resin and sending it up into the trunk.........figure this one out ??? :cool:

Any way, it was a wonderful find, I can't wait to get the trunk part home to split up and then saw up in smaller pieces with my band saw. This will be another good supply of wood stove starter.

Actually, I may have way too much of this stuff now.........:eek:


Robbie Roberson ;)
 
Robbie - It is probably the result of a tree dying and sending a bunch of sap/resin into the trunk. Then it was cut, leaving the stump and the piece of trunk next to it. Or maybe it was cut/broken off well above the ground, and someone cut off part of the tall trunk at a later date.

By far the best fatwood I have ever found was from a Ponderosa that was not cut at all, it eventually fell over and I was able to harvest solid resin fatwood from the roots right at the base of the trunk.
 
lambertiana, thanks for the answer, I would guess your right. I am really having fun with this stuff, it's an amazing thing I think.


Robbie Roberson ;)
 
runningboar said:
Aproy,

Drop me an email. Chris
Click to expand...


It arrived today Chris. THANK YOU. My boss was wondering what the smell was. He is very curious about the packages I get and send out of here. I gladly showed him this one. Hehe. He's not threatened by small pieces of pine.;)
 
wait so fatwood does not have tell tale signs of sap? and it can be gray and greasy? hmm I think i found a fatwood stump on a trail but dunno if it is, it seems a bit dry and not very heavy at all. Its also filled with termite holes.
 
Andy,
I am glad you got it, it does smell great, it smells that way when burning too.

Kev,
I have never seen any like you described especially not with bugs like termites in it, as a matter of fact all that I have found is very insect resistant.
 
Hello to all,
newbie here, I like hiking and fishing/hunting etc.. so, been reading this forum for some time with interest :)
I hope I'm not intruding, but this fatwood seems like something similar when producing pine tar for old time sailingships etc. First they cut out the bark of a living pine tree, all around, leaving just a strip to keep the tree alive.. after a year or so, they cut the strip too, and then wait 3-4 years. after that the whole tree is pumped itself up with pinesap. Then its harvested, and burned in a kiln (?) to get the tar. That's the way they did do it (and still do) here in Northern europe.
Tar was a valuable merchandise back in the days when wooden sailingships were "top of the line" :) Nowadays people use tar to tar up their wooden rowing boats to keep them from rottning.

Now- a sort of a "byproduct" the stumps that stay in the forest, are those which make a good tinder..wood smells alot like pine tar, feels oily, shavings of that light up even under bad conditions. It's been used as tinder as long as they have made tar. Very good stuff..and it really smells great. We have even some candy and alcohol that is flavoured with pine tar. I'm not sure is this same as Fatwood though..
 
Is there another place to purchase good fatwood without going to fatwood.com? I can't stand a place that sells stuff and you have to go rooting around for the damned price.

I, too, was wondering what the hell real "fatwood" was, as soon as you talked about kicking old rotten stumps and finding solid pieces in the punk, I knew what you were talking about but never heard it called fatwood, thanks!
 
Don Rearic said:
Is there another place to purchase good fatwood without going to fatwood.com? I can't stand a place that sells stuff and you have to go rooting around for the damned price.

I, too, was wondering what the hell real "fatwood" was, as soon as you talked about kicking old rotten stumps and finding solid pieces in the punk, I knew what you were talking about but never heard it called fatwood, thanks!
Click to expand...

Fatwood.com only sells bulk to wholesalers according to their site, they do not sell retail. You can buy their products from retailers over on amazon.com. Also, you can buy "maya sticks" which is fatwood.
 
runningboar said:
Real fatwood is very heavy and dense, in some cases you can see the almost petrified sap and it smells very strongly of pine. It burns very brightly and puts out a lot of smoke, sort of like burning rubber.

If what the store is selling is like what I described buy some and try it. Chris
Click to expand...

I bought some commercial stuff from a RONA store (Starter Stikk). About half of it is nothing special. The rest gets progressively better. The final one eighth of the box after culling, is intensely saturated. The saturated stuff is so dense that some of it is heavy and almost translucent in certain light. The box says that its from yellow pine stumps. Considering how much really good fatwood I got out of this 5 lb. box, for $10-11, Im more than satisfied. I sent some to Normark for his opinion, as I have no prior experience with the stuff. However, anyone can tell when you have a dense and heavy chunk in your hand. The wood smells great, until I slice it, then it stinks of turpentine. I shaved some off and lit it with mag bar shavings. The stuff went up like fireworks with a hissing sound.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top