help with fatwood

L

LightningChicken

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Ok Ive been out searching several times for fatwood but I cant seem to find any, I live in NW oregon near mount hood and there is plenty of pines. I still cant find any:mad:, so I need some help finding and Identifying it.:thumbup:anyone have any up close pics to show what a peice looks like?
 
I haven't really searched for it yet, but im interested in identifying it too.

Also, do all types of pine produce it, or just certain ones?
 
look for well rotted but still standing stumps. Best way to harvest is with a old beater ax, chop all the rotten stuff away and go to the core. If there is fatwood it will be very hard, reddish/golden/yellow in color and smell like pine pitch and turpentine when bits are shaved off.

good luck!
 
Bushman5 said:
look for well rotted but still standing stumps. Best way to harvest is with a old beater ax, chop all the rotten stuff away and go to the core. If there is fatwood it will be very hard, reddish/golden/yellow in color and smell like pine pitch and turpentine when bits are shaved off.

good luck!
Click to expand...

pics?
 
LightningChicken said:
pics?
Click to expand...

100_1165-1.jpg



:D:D Sorry ,couldn't resist.:D


Welcome to W&SS.Really though I had such a hard time finding any in the wild.So I went and bought a box at my grocery store.
 
Look for dead, weathered wood. Scrape a small area and if it is the real deal, you will see the rich color underneath. Give it the sniff test as well. Would you think this was fat-wood if you passed it on the trail? It yielded a good supply of fat-wood. Keep at it and once you hit pay-dirt you will know what to look for. Happy hunting:)

 
Looks like this. Reddish in color, where the resin and good stuff and leached down from the dead pine and into the stump. After you see it once, you recognize it.

:thumbup:
 
LightningChicken - Here are some pics. In these pic's you can see that the stumps you will be looking for look pretty old and crusty. Where you live they probably won't be nearly as "dry" looking as the stump in these pic's but I think they will help with the I.D. problem. As others have said i would bring a "beater" axe, or even a sharpened pry bar to get this stuff out, or be prepared to clean your axe afterwards. Happy Hunting :D

DSC_0277.jpg


DSC_0272-1.jpg


P.S. This stump doesn't look especially sticky, but it yielded very resinous fatwood used to start fires all weekend, and I sent some home with some friends.
 
Most of the time you find an old pine where there is a few feet of the trunk still above ground. if you chop into it you would get a very dense chunk of wood that would have much stronger smell of pine to it. If the trunk was standing there for a while you would have some rotten wood and more toward the middle some perfect wood that didnt rot what so ever thats would me mostly fat wood.
here is a pic of the guys working on some fat wood. Yes it did take that many of them lol.

072-1.jpg


Each of the guys took some fat wood but most of it was hauled away by Chris and me. Well i think i did get most of it lol.. Bring an axe and i mean a nice big axe. We tried the saw that Dave had but all it did was plug it up..

Sasha
 
Check these links out. Hope that helps, I found a large stump that I still haven't finish going through a while ago. It's pretty easy, just look around for fallen or dead pine trees and then poke around with a knife or axe or hand until you feel a non-rotted hard part. Cut into it and smell it. It should be a bit sticky, and smell like pine resin.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=671430

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=673319

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dVdepPA-gc
 
powernoodle said:
Looks like this. Reddish in color, where the resin and good stuff and leached down from the dead pine and into the stump. After you see it once, you recognize it.

:thumbup:
Click to expand...

Sorry!! Can't stop laffing from the link , where the guy is sitting in front of the fire with the hottie, and a pail of fatwood in the foreground . How corny :D

BTW, that stuff is a good product,if you can't find the stumps in the bush.
 
Does anyone think a Christmas tree farm would be a good place for fatwood?
Does the resin come up from the roots or down from above?


Dave
 
I live on the east coast so not sure how much help still will be, but I usually let my nose guide me to fatwood.. I've been able to sniff it out pretty regularly.. Where I live, there are patches of pine but for some reason I don't or can't smell them, but my buds can.. I look for the faint smell of pine, not the strong smells.. We(friends and I..12 altogether) dug up about a little over 75 pounds on one tree last year.. I think we collected well over 100 pounds a piece last year alone..
 
Bushman that not my AXE lol...Tuxdad if you dont mind me asking but what are you going to do with over 100lb of fatwood???

Sasha
 
sasha said:
Bushman that not my AXE lol...Tuxdad if you dont mind me asking but what are you going to do with over 100lb of fatwood???

Sasha
Click to expand...

Oh come on man, if a big fire is good, a HUGE fire is better!!

Or you could make a ton of cool fatwood torches, like the one pitdog posted a while back. Much more impressive (and cooler) than tiki torches.
 
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