Fat wood

[Tracker NTS-054]

Hi all, I recently saw a thread named 'fat wood group buy' so I thought I'd take some time off revising to hopefully share something useful..

There's no need to buy fat wood, especially after last winter! Fat wood is essentially resinous wood, commonly pine. All you need to do is take a bacho Laplander or similar saw into the woods and find an old downed pine (there are plenty after last winter). Resin seems to accumulate in knots and nodes in the wood, (hence why pine knots are used after dark on campfires for giving good light) so your target wood is old knots and (preferably) large chunks of exposed root, anywhere from finger thickness to less than wrist thickness..

Once you've cut down said root to reasonable, firesteel lengths and removed the outer bark and cleaned it up a bit with a knife, you should be left with wood that looks 'sticky', feels tacky to the touch and has dark transparent red 'veins' of resin like in the pictures:

All you need to do is carry a stick around with you... They make excellent tinder which burns about 3 times as long and with twice the intensity as the same volume of cotton wool, just scrape fine shavings off with the back of your knife, then add a few small shavings to give it some 'oomph' and light with a spark:

I carry it as a better, natural, and (relatively more) waterproof alternative to 'fluffy tinders' and I promise it weighs no more than a 50 pence piece...

I found out about this through Dave Canterbury's excellent YouTube presence so highly recommend his videos! Sorry I couldn't get more pictures of the actual fallen pine tree etc, just remember there's no need to spend money on the stuff

All the best, Lewis

 

[Clouston98]

Aye mate that's what I do. I find logged pines every now and then when the stump is left, splits some bits of that and it's top tinder .

Edit: really it doesn't even have to be fat wood, if you get some dead willow, split/batton it out and make some fine feathersticks they catch nicely .

 

[tom.moran]

right ok, ill go see if i can find some instead of spending my hard earned. thanks

 

[tom.moran]

trees like this?

 

[HillBill]

Yeah, just think also that gravity has an effect of where the resin accumulates.

 

[tom.moran]

ok, cool. i know where there are about 10 of those within a few mins of each other

 

[HillBill]

Happy days

 

[Tracker NTS-054]

Aye mate that's what I do. I find logged pines every now and then when the stump is left, splits some bits of that and it's top tinder .

Edit: really it doesn't even have to be fat wood, if you get some dead willow, split/batton it out and make some fine feathersticks they catch nicely .

You're very correct there mate!

And yes tom, exactly like that!! Although it needs to be dead, or you just end up with a sappy mess and green wood :/ (bear in mind it takes roots of fallen pines some time to properly 'die' and for the resin to solidify)

All the best!

 

[21st century pict]

If the tree already down get a stick about the size of a baseball bat and smack off any old dead branches in a downward direction or towards the base of the tree, the branch sockets and knots are sometimes fulll of resin and stink of turpentine.

 

[Big Stu 12]

On the same note.. but not quite natural fat wood, just get some wood cutoffs and soak them in Oil.... this give the same effect , not tryed lighting shavings with a ferro rod tho, as I dont use one.. I got one that has sat in the bottom of a bag for years...

 

[Monikieman]

Along the same lines, not natural but....

Candle wax in a tin over the fire. Wood goes in and froths like mad.

All the air and moisture comes out. Wood is saturated in wax instead of covered in wax.

Not greasy or messy and stores nicely

 

[dwardo]

I remember getting a tin of this stuff as a present. Was utterly useless. Struggled to get it to light with a Bic never mind a spark.
Made some my self and it worked great although I usually just use feather sticks and birch bark.

 

[tom.moran]

the fat wood ive used before was amazing, i left a piece in a jar of water for 24 hours and it still lit straight away with a match

 

[Harvestman]

Just to add to this, the best fatwood come from true pines. Spruce, larch, douglas fir etc are much less effective for this, although they all work. Look up Scots pine, and make sure that is what you are collecting from, as it saves disappointment. The cones are an easy identification aid.

 

[21st century pict]

I remember getting a tin of this stuff as a present. Was utterly useless. Struggled to get it to light with a Bic never mind a spark.
Made some my self and it worked great although I usually just use feather sticks and birch bark.

Hi Bro
The the stuff I've had certainly has a short shelf life, I got some very good bits out of a knot in a Scots Pine and it was absolutely reeking of turps, I stuck it in a woolen bag and forgot about it a couple of months later it was practically unless :-(

 

[santaman2000]

Hi Bro
The the stuff I've had certainly has a short shelf life, I got some very good bits out of a knot in a Scots Pine and it was absolutely reeking of turps, I stuck it in a woolen bag and forgot about it a couple of months later it was practically unless :-(

I've used litard (fatwood) from stumps over 100 years old. But those were true Southern Longleaf Yellow Pine stumps. They make good fence posts for corner posts as well (for the same reasons of longevity and wet proofing)

 

[21st century pict]

I've used litard (fatwood) from stumps over 100 years old. But those were true Southern Longleaf Yellow Pine stumps. They make good fence posts for corner posts as well (for the same reasons of longevity and wet proofing)

The stuff I had was from a Scots Pine and from a knot in a branch not the tree stump. Probably didn't help when I split it down to about the size of a couple of pencils stub.

 

[tom.moran]

yeah from what ive heard its best to keep it in large pieces with the bark on until use

 

[Papa Tac]

Our Newfoundland climate is a lot more like the UK's than Florida or the Southern US (home of real quality fat wood, throughout the whole stump and beyond). Must be the heat, 'cause it ain't the humility...
I've found that the pines here - White, Red, Jack, and Scot(ch) Pine - don't accumulate resin in the stump or stem, but instead it gathers in knots and the base of branches.
To find Fatwood here, I cut off a dead Pine branch as close to the stem as possible, the lowest on the tree and largest diameter available. The first couple inches contain the good stuff.
I strip the bark, trim into finger size pieces, and enjoy!
I've even got the Wife hooked on the scent

 

[Macaroon]

Our Newfoundland climate is a lot more like the UK's than Florida or the Southern US (home of real quality fat wood, throughout the whole stump and beyond). Must be the heat, 'cause it ain't the humility...
I've found that the pines here - White, Red, Jack, and Scot(ch) Pine - don't accumulate resin in the stump or stem, but instead it gathers in knots and the base of branches.
To find Fatwood here, I cut off a dead Pine branch as close to the stem as possible, the lowest on the tree and largest diameter available. The first couple inches contain the good stuff.
I strip the bark, trim into finger size pieces, and enjoy!
I've even got the Wife hooked on the scent

I've just been in the woods for the past few hours harvesting fatwood, and your post mirrors my experience exactly; I've always found it to be so in the UK.......Got a very nice quality haul, too