Fat Wood (fat pine) in Georgia...

[jeff_c]

Is it better to wait until spring to look for fat pine in the south east? Or will the tree be "pushing pitch" all year round?

does this even make sense?

 

[hung-solo]

Is it better to wait until spring to look for fat pine in the south east? Or will the tree be "pushing pitch" all year round?

does this even make sense?

winter time is best bc the sap sinks to the bottom of the tree. in the spring the sap makes its way up the tree. now is a good time to go collect a ton of pitched pine. take pics lol.. i have found my best fat wood in the very bottom of the stump and roots. esp roots. good luck

 

[jeff_c]

Ive got a cold steel krukri coming in the mail this week... sounds like a perfect weekend task!

 

[banana-clip]

I find most of my fatwood in the fall and winter around here.

 

[Kirk D]

I used to do most of my deer hunting on the area just west from Monticello. I've always got bunches of fatwood there.

 

[jorasco312]

I was taught as a child that fatwood was obtained from dead trees (and that was a long time ago before the destruction caused by the pine borer beetles). The trees could have been killed by lighting, blown down or broken off by storms or the remaining stump of logged trees. The best was very old and very large stumps wherein the soft non-resinous wood had rotted or mostly rotted away leaving fatwood. Fatwood so damned hard that you can't drive a nail in it.

If you harvest from a living tree what you will get is a hell of a sticky mess. As to the best time... well, now is good.. there aren't any rattlesnakes about.

 

[hung-solo]

I was taught as a child that fatwood was obtained from dead trees (and that was a long time ago before the destruction caused by the pine borer beetles). The trees could have been killed by lighting, blown down or broken off by storms or the remaining stump of logged trees. The best was very old and very large stumps wherein the soft non-resinous wood had rotted or mostly rotted away leaving fatwood. Fatwood so damned hard that you can't drive a nail in it.

If you harvest from a living tree what you will get is a hell of a sticky mess. As to the best time... well, now is good.. there aren't any rattlesnakes about.

yeah look for dead pines not live ones. lol.. its safer to get fatwood in the winter too haha.. damned snakes!!

 

[jeff_c]

Ahh success!!!

I went out in the snow today!

Sure enough, I found a nice old stump and went to whacking away with my new Cold Steel Kukri. I quickly learned that a hatchet would have been a better choice.

Anyway, I hacked down into the stump and while I never found a large "chunk" of fat pine, I could find "veins" of it running through the wood.

I peeled sevearl off and headed back to the house.

Now mind you, this was WET pine. I shaved out some of the pine with my trusty Mora and just as I remembered as a kid, the stuff will light off a very small flame. And by twisting and turning it, you could "start a forest fire with that". LOL.

Only thing, how do I get that sticky pitch off my Mora blade LOL.

But man, make a feather stick with that... WATCH OUT!

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

You can easily get the pitch off your blade with any kind of oil. I recommend a small dab of peanut butter since it doesn't run everywhere and it spreads nicely.