Fatwood

MLS2

Happy to be here
Joined
Feb 9, 2017
Messages
233
Location
Carthage, nc
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I was "bitten" by the fatwood collecting bug since I was in scouting. I am now 75 and still at it. I will say that I have a lot of it in various forms, but for those interested is such things I would like to show you my most treasured and rare piece. This is a 4 1/2 foot tall stump that I pulled out with my 4 wheeler. The bottom 2 feet was in the stump hole which is twice the diameter of the top of this piece. I am going back top measure the hole when I get a chance. I have never seen a short leaf, loblolly or a long leaf pine with a split trunk in all my years in the woods. Forty.. fifty feet up the trunk, yes, but never this low. However, as I was resting after struggling with this damn treasure of mine I was stunned to see a live short leaf not 15/20 yards from where I was sitting. Same basic conformation, just the split showing higher, I guess because what I have showing was not visible from the outside, so it would have been like the live one.

I can not bring myself to even think of breaking this thing down, but I have taken small cores in several areas. It appears to be at least 85 to 90 percent everywhere.
 
Last edited:
I'm not a collector but when I was active on bushcraftusa i got sent a few different parcels from all over. Love the smell of fatwood.
 
I guess you could say that I hoard it, but I have always shared it with others. Since the internet and forums, I have given it to people in the US and several countries around the world. I have never had anyone fail to send me the cost of shipping.
 
I have a full stump the same way in the front yard with several roots off of it. I have had several people want me to give it to them.

Next time I'm out there in daylight, I'll snap a pic.
 
Last edited:
Folks like to trade and collect it apparently, I just light fires with it

Same here...

I did get excited a couple weeks ago when I opened up a knee wall to lower a bar top and found one of the old studs was a 3' piece of pure fatwood... I cut it out and replaced it.
 
Right.

I use it for kindling and camp fires myself.

I just never thought of it as trading one stick for another. Im also thinking, collecting like one would classic firearms or some such?

Is that what your talking about? Or more collecting for use and trading for other items?
 
How do I know if what I'm holding is fatwood? The smell?
 
Over 25 years ago I was in a hunting club in Franklin Co, just outside of Bunn. It was were I was born and raised and spent the vast majority of my life in that area until I moved up here to northern Granville Co. We hunted the area along the Tar River, much of which is now either a development or Taylor's nursery. When we got word that Taylor was buying the majority of land we hunted, knowing we would not be using the land any more, I was given permission to pull some lightered stumps out. There was a section just upstream from Ferrel's Bridge that was loaded with lightered. i went in one day and what I couldn't pull up I cut off with a chainsaw and filled the bed of a pickup piled high. When I moved up here, that pile of lightered came with me and there is still about half of it left. I see it in my woods all the time but just leave it for whoever comes after me. I tried cutting some up into sticks with a band saw once but had too fine a blade. That thing kept gumming up till I gave up. The "sawdust" that you get from doing this makes a great fire starter by itself. Just put some down and lay a match on it and it goes.
 
I have a large Priority Mail box stuffed full of fatwood and would like to have another big boxful. I too splinter it up and use to start campfires. Plus it has a nice aroma.
 
I used to save it from trees we cut down on jobs. Had a garbage can full at on e time. I use it to start fires. All of my fire kits have a few pieces. It will catch fire when wet and in the rain.
 
Back
Top Bottom