coloradowildman
Gold Member
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2009
- Messages
- 1,202
Hi everyone,
A little while back I did a test of the different fatwoods and placed the results on this forum and at Bushcraft USA http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/870263-FATWOOD-TEST-Douglas-Fir-VS-The-Pine-Fatwoods?highlight=douglas+fir. In the test, I used fatwood bought from Ace Hardware that came from Honduras to mistakenly represent Southern Longleaf Pine. It performed terribly in my tests even though it had a very high resin content. Not living in the eastern US where Longleaf Pine, Pitch Pine and the other fatwood producing Southern Yellow Pines are, I was unable to harvest any myself and so was unable to compare it with the store bought stuff.
With great thanks to Carbonmated over at Bushcraft USA, I was sent some pieces of good Florida fatwood (most likely Longleaf Pine) and the difference between this fatwood and the Honduras stuff was immediately apparent. The Honduras fatwood has a strong spicy odor, whereas the Florida fatwood smells like turpentine. I haven't done extensive testing yet but the Florida Longleaf fatwood appears to be close in performance to the volatile fatwoods from the western US, in other words, excellent. Because of this difference, I poked around on the internet and found my answer at place called "fatwood.com" and this is what it says:
"Our Fatwood comes from the stumps of a pine related to the longleaf but native to our Central American tree farms. These pines are quick-growing, do not occupy rain forest areas, and are a non-endangered species, yielding a product that is sustainable, economically viable and environmentally responsible."
So these pine trees in Honduras are NOT the slow growing and sometimes fire-scorched US fatwood producing trees like the Southern Yellow Pines (Longleaf, Pitch Pine, etc), Western Yellow Pines (Ponderosa Pine, Lodepole, etc) or the prized Douglas Fir and Tamarack (Larch) fatwood, all of which produce a high amount of volatile terpenes (what makes turpentine) in addition to their resins. The Honduras stuff is extremely high in resin but low in the flammable terpenes, hence the poor performance in my test.
I think for folks that just use the Honduras stuff just for an indoor fireplace\wood stove or dry summer campfires, it's probably fine. However, I would not want to carry it for an emergency in cold weather. My advice is to stick with US-only fatwoods if you want something for your pack or BOB, as all of them are excellent and will perform well even if it's windy, raining or snowing. It appears that most of what is sold commercially now is the Honduras stuff (Orvis, Ace Hardware, Walmart, etc). It appears that US fatwood from large commercial operations has dried up, but there are still many smaller sellers out there who sell stuff from their property. I'd list some places but Bladeforums is so overzealous about linking to websites that sell anything that'd I'd get in trouble. Just type in keywords or look on eBay where the seller can verify where it's from.
Sorry for the long post but I wanted to give everyone a heads up!
Cheers, CW
A little while back I did a test of the different fatwoods and placed the results on this forum and at Bushcraft USA http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/870263-FATWOOD-TEST-Douglas-Fir-VS-The-Pine-Fatwoods?highlight=douglas+fir. In the test, I used fatwood bought from Ace Hardware that came from Honduras to mistakenly represent Southern Longleaf Pine. It performed terribly in my tests even though it had a very high resin content. Not living in the eastern US where Longleaf Pine, Pitch Pine and the other fatwood producing Southern Yellow Pines are, I was unable to harvest any myself and so was unable to compare it with the store bought stuff.
With great thanks to Carbonmated over at Bushcraft USA, I was sent some pieces of good Florida fatwood (most likely Longleaf Pine) and the difference between this fatwood and the Honduras stuff was immediately apparent. The Honduras fatwood has a strong spicy odor, whereas the Florida fatwood smells like turpentine. I haven't done extensive testing yet but the Florida Longleaf fatwood appears to be close in performance to the volatile fatwoods from the western US, in other words, excellent. Because of this difference, I poked around on the internet and found my answer at place called "fatwood.com" and this is what it says:
"Our Fatwood comes from the stumps of a pine related to the longleaf but native to our Central American tree farms. These pines are quick-growing, do not occupy rain forest areas, and are a non-endangered species, yielding a product that is sustainable, economically viable and environmentally responsible."
So these pine trees in Honduras are NOT the slow growing and sometimes fire-scorched US fatwood producing trees like the Southern Yellow Pines (Longleaf, Pitch Pine, etc), Western Yellow Pines (Ponderosa Pine, Lodepole, etc) or the prized Douglas Fir and Tamarack (Larch) fatwood, all of which produce a high amount of volatile terpenes (what makes turpentine) in addition to their resins. The Honduras stuff is extremely high in resin but low in the flammable terpenes, hence the poor performance in my test.
I think for folks that just use the Honduras stuff just for an indoor fireplace\wood stove or dry summer campfires, it's probably fine. However, I would not want to carry it for an emergency in cold weather. My advice is to stick with US-only fatwoods if you want something for your pack or BOB, as all of them are excellent and will perform well even if it's windy, raining or snowing. It appears that most of what is sold commercially now is the Honduras stuff (Orvis, Ace Hardware, Walmart, etc). It appears that US fatwood from large commercial operations has dried up, but there are still many smaller sellers out there who sell stuff from their property. I'd list some places but Bladeforums is so overzealous about linking to websites that sell anything that'd I'd get in trouble. Just type in keywords or look on eBay where the seller can verify where it's from.
Sorry for the long post but I wanted to give everyone a heads up!
Cheers, CW
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