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Quick Question on Fatwood...

Odaon

Odaon

Joined
Apr 13, 2009
Messages
3,114
Ok, well I was out today and, with mistwalkers great posts, was able to find myself a sweet fatwood stump. I will post pictures of it later etc. etc. But I had a quick question. When processing it, say you have a small piece from a broken off chunk. The bark and stuff on the outside doesn't really have any resin material, is it a good idea to shave that off leaving a solid piece of fatwood. I'll post a picture of the stuff I'm talking about.

dsc0085f.jpg

You can see the bark and non-resin material next to the dark amber colors. Should I continue shaving off that stuff?

Also, I'm collecting the saw dust as I cut through the stump. I figured it would be a good way to make a tin full of dust. Some of the bark and stuff falls into it, does that really matter?

Thanks.

Alright, fine, here's a sneak peek of the first cut we made.
dsc0082qn.jpg
 
The extra dust wont prevent is from burning or anything, I wouldn't worry too much about it. On the chunks, I leave the bark stuff on, just because it is easier, and I have never run in to any problems with it.
 
BarberFobic1992 said:
The extra dust wont prevent is from burning or anything, I wouldn't worry too much about it. On the chunks, I leave the bark stuff on, just because it is easier, and I have never run in to any problems with it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick response. I'll just take it off on some and leave it on some others. The stump was the second one I checked. Some good stuff. It was heavy as heck to carry back to the car. Post and pictures to come at some point when I finish processing.
 
Very nice. It all depends on how saturated the wood with resin is. Sometimes its patchy and if you don't watch out there is more regular wood than pitchwood in your cut up piece. You wouldn't want that one to be part of your EDC emergency tinder/kindling. On the other hand, the bark keeps the sticky factor down so if it is pretty saturated it doesn't hurt to leave it on.

Looks like a great find. Save the sawdust in a little tin or make fire straws with it.
 
kgd said:
Very nice. It all depends on how saturated the wood with resin is. Sometimes its patchy and if you don't watch out there is more regular wood than pitchwood in your cut up piece. You wouldn't want that one to be part of your EDC emergency tinder/kindling. On the other hand, the bark keeps the sticky factor down so if it is pretty saturated it doesn't hurt to leave it on.

Looks like a great find. Save the sawdust in a little tin or make fire straws with it.
Click to expand...

Yeah. I've been taking most of the bark off of these outer pieces, we'll see once I get further into the process.

What's a fire straw. I was just gonna throw it all into a tin, or a couple. :thumbup:
 
Get a couple of wide plastic straws, like the variety that McDonald's hands out. Grab a pair of needlenose pliers and press one end shut, leaving about 1/8" of the end stick out the end of the plyers. Us a lighter to seal that 1/8" extra piece shut. Let cool. Pack about 1-2" of the straw with your fatwood dust or your can shove petroleum jelly cotton balls in there. Cut the straw, use the pliers to seal the other end. You now have a nice, durable, waterproof container containing your tinder. To use, cut open with knife. The straw will burn up with the flames and add to the kindling.

I wish I had the link to the original thread on this and could credit the poster appropriately. Its a great idea. Make a bunch up and stick 'em in little places, PSK's, firekits, first-aid kits, glove compartments, under the flap of your tilley hat ect.
 
You want to be selective with your fatwood. The more "canaray yellow" it is, the better it is. Some types of pine have a much less resinous pitch than others. Yours looks pretty dark, but it will really be trail and error to see if it will take a spark.
 
I cut that chunk in half and it was much more yellow in the inside. Down towards there it looks very dark. Most of the stuff I processed just now was nice and yellow, and took flames well. We'll see as I keep going through it. If I get a dud, there's more what it came from. Haha.
 
Nice fatwood! How much time did it take you to clean off your saw afterward?

What species of pine was it? Or was it spruce? I have never seen decent fatwood in fir. Around here the best stuff comes from Ponderosa pine.
 
Thanks for the compliments Odaon, I'm glad you found my posts helpful.
What I keep in kits has always been small, split, "debarked" pieces and they take a spark fine. When I'm in the woods I seldom use what I have in my kit as I'll invariably walk by a piece on the trail and take some of it with me. When I scrap the fuzz and make the shavings as I've done in threads threads I just scrape outer bark and all into the tinder pile unless it has been raining or is wet from being in the ground.

I did a demo of the little striker knife and fatwood for some friends of my brother earlier when I was at his house. I used a piece that had been in the bed of my truck all day (it's raining) so I whittled the bark off into the fire place and then scraped the surface for fuzz and then some thin shavings and and with one sparking of the firesteel I had fire. Brandon not knowing how fast it was going to happen looked away or blinked and I had to do it a second time and once again one spark was all it took. The thin piece I was using ranged from a deep ruby red in the center, to a flame orange, to a canary yellow with much more red and orange than yellow and took a spark just fine, I think you have enough fatwood there to start many many fires.
 
lambertiana said:
Nice fatwood! How much time did it take you to clean off your saw afterward?

What species of pine was it? Or was it spruce? I have never seen decent fatwood in fir. Around here the best stuff comes from Ponderosa pine.
Click to expand...

I designated the saw as my "fatwood saw" haha. It's just a cheap Coghlans saw I got at some gas station because I didn't have one when I needed one. I used My old (dull) Frosts Mora to do the finer work and baton. It kind of developed a splotchy patina of sorts. I need to sharpen it (and get something to sharpen it with) really badly, but it works for now.

I have no clue what type of tree it was. The rest of the tree was dead on the ground near it but I didn't take the time to check it out. Later after we had left that spot I was thinking that I should have tried, but it was pretty dead.

Mistwalker, I can't wait to get out and hit it with a spark. I lit some with a lighter, and it took the flame like crazy!

From just a small piece that I didn't even show in the picture I was able to get 5 2-4 inch pieces and one 5 inch chunk that's pretty thick. I will make a post tomorrow maybe. Look out for it.
 
Fort Collins, CO. So the tree came from the Rockies. Maybe 9000-10000 elevation (just a guess).
 
lambertiana said:
Ponderosa is a yellow pine and is widespread in Colorado. That is one possibility.
Click to expand...

I don't know all the stuff up there, but I think pondo is more wide spread further south. It could very well be a pondo though, there are some up there. I'm not really sure.....
 
The few times I've found it of what I assume was white pine it was just that, white. White with a hi-gloss surface anywhere you split it, but I've only ever found it as driftwood, I've yet to find any in the woods here.
 
Ya'll should see the fatwood from long leaf pine. Its like an incendiary device! Now long leaf is not the only one that people would tap for turpentine, but they were one of the cheif species used here in the south. In the Sandhills, I'll come upon an ancient long leaf with a crevice carved out of the side, completely resin encased from a sap tap in the 50s.

Here is a picture to illustrate

2320081899_bb5ccf424c.jpg



http://www.maritime.org/conf/conf-kaye-tar.htm
 
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