Wood Options

L

LittleSpartan

Joined
Mar 16, 2010
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I don't know if I'm ganna catch flack for this, but fatwood? Is Firestart Firelighters, from home depot a good substitute? Resin rich trees, like the decorative pine trees found in most school and neighborhood parks, or walking trails? Just tried some dryer lint, and the weirdest thing is, it didn't actually catch right away, :( so got a little worried. Dunno why this happened, since I've tried it before and it worked, hmm...:confused:
 
A lot of the additivies in the dryer sheets and detergent can make the dryer lent not so flammable. A bunch of other people have ran into the same thing with the dryer lent. Best bet is get a bunch of cotton balls and smother them with Vasaline, then store them in a sealable bag or cantainer. Either that or just stick to the regular old fatwood.
 
cotton balls by themselves work pretty good... but i don't think the OP was asking for that :D :D :D
 
I have never seen fatwood for sale in WV. Maybe I am not looking in the right places? I looked for it at a Super Walmart where the charcoal is at & never seen any. All I seen was the Firestart Starters in the camping section or the charcoal starting fluid & butane fire lighters beside the charcoal.
Where is the fatwood located at in Walmart?

UPDATE: I found a 4 pound bag of fatwood at the ACE Hardware store in the fireplace section.
 
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matthewdanger said:
The only place better to find fatwood than the woods is Menard's. They sell a 4# bag for $4.
Click to expand...
closest Menard's to me is just shy of a 3 hour drive from me...
I'll stick with the log I'm slowly processing into usable pieces.
 
Gundude, the reason I asked is cause I used that and it actually didn't work, which is odd cause same source I got other samplings worked fine.

But I just ordered Fatwood online, bulk order. Going to also save some to put into kit bags I will be giving to people as bday/xmas gifts :D all in one, cause I'm cheap atm and broke about now ;) well..until next pay check :D

Thanks for the input guys!
 
As I have said in other threads, I'm not a dryer lint fan. It works ok at best but is very poor compared to things I can readily find in the woods where I live - without having to pre-prepare something.

Many of these survival techniques got their start from people applying them once and passing it on. Never having to use them under adverse conditions or practicing under such conditions. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, beats experimenting in all types of conditions. The little SAS survival manual is filled with shit that doesn't work a lot of times, or at all. For example, the technique of starting a fire from striking a piece of flint on an axe head. Bullshit.

In the end, reading will get you killed. Actually learning and perfecting the skills through practice is what will keep you alive. Train. Even if it's in your own backyard. Start a fire then pour a 5-gallon bucket of water over all your tools, your hands, your tinder, yourself, etc. and then train some more. Just because you can ligth a fire under good conditions with a certain tinder or device doesn't mean you will be able to when the chips are down.
 
Crap, the wife offered me a 3 day survival course with Jon Lofty Wiseman and I am supposed to go there in two weeks time!! For those who don't know who he is, he's the guy who wrote the book Jeff was talking about above!! :eek:

Oh well at least I will be able to play with my knives :D
 
Not saying all his stuff is BS. Lots of good info in that book but some of it is BS. The problem with survival manuals is they are mainly re-printed stuff that other people have printed, instead of each technique actually being tested and applied before going to press with a book.
 
I just ordered a few pounds of fatwood online via LL Bean, cause best price for pound I found, :) going to see and use this stuff and see how it works :) And Jeff, I know you teach classes, but no book coming out of your end? I'm sure it'd be a keeper, and somewhere in fine print it would say, this book can cut wood, catch fish, and signal for help with its highly reflective cover :)
 
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