Identifying, processing and using Fatwood in the bush part I

My 6yo son and I dug a Fatwood stump from the back yard yesterday. He enjoyed using a small hatchet for supervised cutting. Afterward, we made a small fire with some of the wood. This stuff burns great.
Great thread...
Roy
 
aggopian said:
To my inexperienced eye that just looks like junk rotted wood. I have alot to learn and appreciate your post.
Click to expand...

Once you try it and catch on to it you'll always be able to spot it...above grown it deteriorates differently than most woods and shows very distinct patterns in the wood. Any stump below ground just kick...start out lightly at first, kicking the rot away if you find a very solid core just cut it open. As Joezilla stated it will smell like turpentine
 
Fat Wood was just a legend for me until last June. I noticed the stump of an Austria Pine killed by some sort of fungus. After a heavy rain, the stump was saturated EXCEPT for the center nine inches. Water had beaded up on that portion of the stump and it looked very different from the rotted part - dark and dense. I hit it with the butt of my axe, and it sounded evry solid for a "rotted" stump. I wacked out a chunk of the center, and it smelled like terpentine. A grocery bag of it went back home with me. Great stuff!
 
Great post.
Now I have a fighting chance of finding some fatwood.
Thanks for the lessons.
 
Sharp eye..... locating fatwood is one of those things that becomes second nature after you find the first one. If pine is in your area.... so is fatwood.
 
Magnussen said:
Sharp eye..... locating fatwood is one of those things that becomes second nature after you find the first one. If pine is in your area.... so is fatwood.
Click to expand...

What's up Bro ? Still got a behind or did you freeze it off up there lol?

Thanks, I was about to say pretty much the same thing.
 
Funny, where I spend my summer in Pennsylvania there's downed wood like this everywhere, I just never knew it was fatwood! I'll definitely be stocking up when I head over that direction. Thanks for the knowledge!!
 
for all us BC Canada folks.... Lilloet/Clinton BC has hundreds of thousands of pine tree stumps. All are 5 - 12" thick and SOLID FATWOOD. Seems to be that anywhere where it is HOT, there is major pine trees....and fatwood! .

i plan to make a trip up there again, with my chainsaw, ax, prybar. i want to FILL my pickup truck with fatwood.....
 
Bushman5 said:
for all us BC Canada folks.... Lilloet/Clinton BC has hundreds of thousands of pine tree stumps. All are 5 - 12" thick and SOLID FATWOOD. Seems to be that anywhere where it is HOT, there is major pine trees....and fatwood! .

i plan to make a trip up there again, with my chainsaw, ax, prybar. i want to FILL my pickup truck with fatwood.....
Click to expand...

We have tons of it here too. It's good to have some around for firestarting.
 
For you PNW guys, I don't run across a lot of pine in my area here on the west side of the Cascades. We have lots of Doug Fir, Cedar, and Hemlock. Do these produce fatwood? the last several stumps I checked out were all rot.

Rick, I get what you're saying about once you see it once. It is kind of like the pattern recognition you develop for game shapes.


Thanks,

FLIX
 
Mist that was a very informative photo essay on fatwood/lighter. The photographs are part of the success, along with your narrative to make it understandable. Even with that there's plenty of regional questions, like Flix above.
 
1Tracker said:
Mist that was a very informative photo essay on fatwood/lighter. The photographs are part of the success, along with your narrative to make it understandable. Even with that there's plenty of regional questions, like Flix above.
Click to expand...


Thank you, I'm glad you liked it. I'm sorry that I cannot personally be more helpful as far as regionally goes except with the South East U.S. as I have personally found it in abundance in the forests of Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and South Eastern Mississippi, mostly in yellow pine and sometimes White pine. However I have a network friends I talk with a lot who are scattered over the Eastern U.S. and South Eastern Canada who have all said they had found there and had found it in yellow and white pines. Seems I've read that it occurs in the North West as well. I'd like for someone from say Colorado to chime in as to whether or not it occurs in Aspens.

Also judging from the label on the stuff you buy at Walmart it apparently occurs in the Honduras as well as it is supposedly harvested as an after product of their lumber industry.
 
Have you all ever seen the video where Ray Mears boils down fat wood and gets the turpentine out of it?

It comes out black and I am sure looks a lot like fat grease at the end of cooking.

I think Mist is right about the name.

Great tutorial - I learned things fo - sho.

TF
 
Talfuchre said:
Have you all ever seen the video where Ray Mears boils down fat wood and gets the turpentine out of it?

It comes out black and I am sure looks a lot like fat grease at the end of cooking.

I think Mist is right about the name.

Great tutorial - I learned things fo - sho.

TF
Click to expand...

Haven't seen the video, thanks, I'll have to check it out.

hank dangle said:
great pics, great info.......thanks!!!!
Click to expand...

Thanks man, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top