Do you collect and process your own fatwood? Successful?

[mesuno]

Hi folks,

I just spent a couple of hours splitting some nice pieces of fatwood that I collected while strolling through some local pine woods. I've not used it before (hadn't heard of it until a couple of weeks ago!) so I'm looking forward to trying it out in the wood stove.

As I understand it, fatwood should light with just a match, and three or four pieces should be enough to get the fire going.

The pieces I've split so far are of varying quality - some highly resinous and sticky to the touch, others more like ordinary pine. The best pieces came from a huge and very heavy pine stump. It was covered in moss but when I started trying to shift the whole thing it moved fairly easily - all the roots had rotted away leaving the fatwood core and a few of the thicker roots. I'd say the piece weighed in at around 15kg but was quite wet as it was in water logged ground.

My advice for finding pieces was to look for the most unlikely ancient moss covered stump - something that looks like it can't possibly have any good wood left in it. If it crumbles apart in your hands it is perfect, because any bits that you do find will be good quality resinous fatwood.

I remain to be sold on it's fire starting merits, and this batch needs to dry out before a true test. Fingers crossed.

Anyone else collect fatwood? What do you look for? How good is it for you - can you do without other firelighters?

Mike

 

[zzr7ky]

Thanks for posting. I'l give it a try when I see a good old pine stump.

A few friends of mine have gatherd and given me some. a stick of two will start the ash I'm burning.

'nother Mike

 

[Backwoods Savage]

We've done it before because in many places of MI we still find the old big stumps from the banner logging days. Some also just gather pine cones which work well, especially if dipped in hot wax. We've taken to burning Super Cedars this year and they work really nice.

 

[Bigg_Redd]

WTF is fatwood?

 

[mesuno]

WTF is fatwood?

As I understand it fatwood is pine with such a high resin content that it simple can't rot down. When dry it will light with just a match and burn with a fairly strong flame. I think it is formed when a pine tree is traumatically kill (ie felled or snapped due to storm damage) - the roots continue to send up sap and resin which collects in the remaining stump. It seems quite variable how much resin ends up in the wood. In my hour or dso wandering the pine woods I found some old stumps with fragments of fatwood (easy to extract - everything else had rotted away) and one fabulous large stump which was entirely fat wood - red, sticky to the touch from resin and really heavy. I'd guess the stump had been there 20 years and the wood inside still looks pristine.

It lifted out of the ground easily enough by hand, because anything without sufficient resin had rotted away entirely. I split some of it and, after drying for a few hours on a radiator, the half inch splits light easily with a match. I'm hopeful that when properly dry they will be as good as firelighters.

I'll try and post some pics one I get home from travels.

Mike

 

[Jamess67]

.....We've taken to burning Super Cedars this year and they work really nice.

What are these super cedars you speak of. I just cut down ALOT of cedars.. More info please.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Fat wood is that from those trees that has been fed lots of fast food. (Yes, it is from old pine trees. Don't use if you have a cat stove.)

Super Cedars sometimes has an ad on here. It is compressed cedar and was. They come in circles and we break them into 4 pieces and they really work nice for starting fires. It is said that if you use an entire circle that it will burn for 30 minutes. I'll try to give you a link if I can find it.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

PM sent to James.

 

[Wood Duck]

I have a few super cedars I am eager to try, plus lots of regular cedars (easter red cedar - Juniperus virginiana) that is very dry and makes a great kindling, but doesn't but quite easily enough to be a fire starter. I'll keep my eyes peeled for some fatwood, but pines were never as common here as in a lot of other parts of the country.

 

[Freeheat]

I use Fatwood , a 5 lb bag is 10 bucks and one bag lasts one season. Tried to do the newspaper deal first few times and that didn't work well for me. I have some super cedars and cant wait to try them.

 

[mesuno]

Do you also use some kind of fire lighters, or do they light with just a match. I guess what I'm getting at is if I still will need some kind of other firelighter then they might not be worth the time and effort of gathering myself.

 

[jharkin]

(Yes, it is from old pine trees. Don't use if you have a cat stove.)

I'm curious, why not? It shouldn't be any worse than burning a lot of pine (which the MFG says is ok) and in any case its burned off long before you go on bypass.


I used some that was given to me a few times to start my stove, didn't seem to hurt anything.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

My wife really likes the fatwood but I don't. When we bought the Fireview they advised us to not use it. That was all I needed and we've not bought any more. Although my wife can get a fire going much quicker and easier with the Super Cedars she still says she would like some fatwood again. Nope. Won't happen.

btw, when I used fatwood, many times I had a problem getting some of them to even light. Not so with the Super Cedars. I lit a fire just this morning. One match, close the door. A little bit later turn the draft down half way. A little later flip the cat on. It is just a small fire so only 360 stove top. Just taking the chill off as it is supposed to be 64 today but still lots and lots of wind.

 

[stek]

How interesting! We live on a property that was logged off before we bought it and we still have a ton of (pine) stumps that are slowly rotting away .. I will have to dig at them and try this out. So you're saying the fatwood is the core of the stump or ??

I can testify to how well the stumps burn, we stumped a section of the property this past spring and stacked and burned the stumps. Had a pile about 30'x30'x30' and it burned like an inferno down to ash in one day. The stumps had only been pulled out of the ground a few days before we burned them. I wonder if that was due to a 'fatwood' core?