Texas Tinder

rickppoole

rickppoole

Joined
Jun 1, 2007
Messages
290
I'm trying to work on my fire building techniques but all the information I keep finding on the best wood to use seems to be Pitch Wood or Fat Wood. I live in the Texas Hill Country and to my untrained eyes 90% of the trees we have are Live Oak- not the easiest thing to light in a pinch.

Can anyone from this neck of the woods reccomend what they use for tinder / kindling and teach me how to find it?

Much thanks!
 
Pitchwood/fatwood is just the resin rich remains in the heart of pine trees after they die. But, good dry pine, dead cedar, or any small dry whiskers of wood should suffice. Pick up a SS or aluminum screwtop pill carrier at a pharmacy and stuff it with vaseline rubbed cotton balls, attach it to your ferro rod with some paracord, and you are good to go. They take a spark/flame easily and burn enough to light a fire well.
Good Luck,
Beckerhead
 
There's usually plenty of dead oak (branches, trees, etc.) that are cured enough to whittle down for kindling. As for tinder, the best I've found here in central Texas are from the scrub cedar trees growing all over. I look for the dead ones, and just scrape the paper bark off and crumble it up. I HIGHLY recommend the cotton-balls and Vaseline tinder balls...a film-cannister sized container will easily hold 6 of these tinder balls and you only need a quater of one to help get a fire going.

BTW, my Father-in-Law from Florida brought me a huge box of Fat Wood that he ran into on his property:D I love this stuff...it burns like a candle or torch.

ROCK6
 
I "live" in southern California, and I found some fatwood growing wild in the fireplace section of my local hardware store. :-) Of course, I harvested a bundle.
 
Thistle down is awsome it works just as good as real cotton. After they have gone
to flower the purple head starts to turn white. they are getting ready to seed.
Pick the white downy stuff and strike your fire steelinto it and watch it turn to flame.
TEXES has its share of that plant.
Bryan
 
rickppoole said:
I'm trying to work on my fire building techniques but all the information I keep finding on the best wood to use seems to be Pitch Wood or Fat Wood. I live in the Texas Hill Country and to my untrained eyes 90% of the trees we have are Live Oak- not the easiest thing to light in a pinch.

Can anyone from this neck of the woods reccomend what they use for tinder / kindling and teach me how to find it?

Much thanks!
Click to expand...

When looking for fat wood stumps look for stumps that are free of bark and appear weathered.
 
My dad found a large supply at the local home improvement center. They discard the skids that go under bundles of lumber. There was a four foot section of 2 x4 in the trash that was all fat wood. He brought it home, I cut it up and split it into small pieces. This is not the first time I have seen 2x4's that had pitch in them.
 
Down here in south texas I have gathered cat-tails from along freshwater banks and they work great. I actually saved a few and put them in a plastic bag and sealed it off for future tinder. I generally use firesticks from wally world, just a few bucks and you just need a piece to get a flame started. What I want to know is where to find flint here in Texas?
 
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