# Making Fatwood?



## slackercruster (Jan 8, 2012)

Is there a way to make fatwood firestarters at home?


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## firefighterjake (Jan 8, 2012)

You could just make your own kindling . . . it may not be the same as fatwood, but should work just as well . . . cutting up and splitting cast off dimension lumber such as 2 x 4s, 2 x 6s, etc. in the bargain bin at the local hardware store or you could get a bunch of cedar shingles . . . or just make your own out of a split.

Other folks here also make their own firestarter concoctions . . . often involving wood chips, sawdust and candle wax.


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## mesuno (Jan 8, 2012)

Yes, and I've done it but it takes quite a bit of effort if you need a lot.

Go out to the woods and find an area with pine trees. Look for old moss covered stumps - you won't think it possible for there to be any good wood left in them because of how rotten it all feels. You should be able to just pull chunks out with your hands or kick them free with your boot.

You find that some bits feel punky but others are still rock hard and, when you shave them with a knife have that resinous pine smell and look as good as the day the tree was felled. That's your fatwood - all the ordinary wood has rotted away. I was able to gather a decent carrier bag worth in an hour or so from the woods I found, but you may well do better.  As with all firewood it will need time to dry out before it burns well, despite various recommendations online about fatwood being ready to burn as soon as you find it. I think my pieces lost about half their mass in about a week of hanging in front of a radiator.

Having been through the process I'm not sure it is worth it - if you have pine around anyway just split nice thin bits of kindling from a round. Let it get nice and dry, then use it with newspaper. I think a lot of fuss is made over kindling because people don't put the same thought into it that we put into seasoning proper logs. If it needs 2 years to season your logs that get added when the fire is going well, think how much drier your kindling should be if it is to light really easily?

These days we are lucky and have sacks full of old oak lathes from house refurbishments - they pretty much just light with a match.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZFMAMNkXDg
Video is a neat way to make lots of kindling quickly.


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## maverick06 (Jan 8, 2012)

soak a couple sticks in fat after you cook up something........ thatll give you "fat wood" and one heck of a firestarter .... but thats not what you were thinking about


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## tcassavaugh (Jan 8, 2012)

i just go out back and break or gather up a bunch of downed limbs, brush and snap them off in usable lengths. start small and go bigger when i have to start using a saw, its getting too big for kindling. seem to have almost a never ending supply. limbs are always falling in the yard. i just drag them over into the woods in the summer and use them in the winter.

cass


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## clemsonfor (Jan 8, 2012)

I know i am a guy on the net and you really dont want to trust a sole if your like me.  But if you want some i will send you as much as your willing to pay to ship, if you want it.  I do see that your asking about making it so your wanting to save money im sure and see if it can be made.

But my job is a forester for a Government agency, my main duties are to supervise loggers on several different properities totaling around 200K acres. Several of these areas are in teh Sand Hills where Longleaf pine is found, which makes the best Lighter stumps.  But loblolly makes good lighter  if an old tree in certain areas so i grab it as i go when i feel like it. I mostly leave it now unless its right next to the truck.  I have given it as christmas presents in the past.  I also have contemplated selling it on ebay but what folks were selling it for it did not seem worth the effort to me.

I have more than a a few years supply right now and im not even really activly gathering it right now.


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## ScotO (Jan 8, 2012)

i cut a heck of a lot of trees year round as a side job, and sadly a lot of them are pine.....here in central PA, i found that some of the best natural firestarters is the sappy heartwood of yellow pine...split into tiny slivers for the tinder (use an old shingler's froe to do this), keep some bigger stuff (2" diameter splits) for the kindling..I have a pile of it stocked up, but rarely use it in the winter due to having a continuous fire.....soaking slivers of white pine in bacon or any rendered grease also works fine too....pine cones dipped in candle wax are fantastic and easy to make out of unused candle remnants, we also make starters out of candle wax and chainsaw shavings..............but from all I have been reading here on the hearth, those supercedars must be the cat's *ss....lol.....


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## basod (Jan 8, 2012)

I think LL Beans fatwood is actually imported from south America, probably from some rainforest clearcut.
the heart pine/lighter pine mentoined above is abundunt in the woods around my house, when all the exterior wood has rotted away the pith is left, lights easily but I don't think it really burns fast/hot enough for a goord fire starter.  I've noted the dark black smoke from Bean's fatwood(I've gotten a box or two for x-mas gifts in the past) and from the lighter pine my GF picks up when on our woods walks.
They both seem full of resin that I can't help but think it's plating out on a cold liner during a fresh fire cold start.
I've made it from pine stump, best time to cut is spring when sap is running, let stump sit for a few weeks then cut and split/season for atleast a year better 2 even if small kindling.
It ends up being more work than the current kindling I pick up, 2 halves of poly 55gal drums one for 1/2in -anything I can break over my knee, and the other for fine twigs.  takes 10-15mis to fill both in my woods and they keep the mess down on the front porch.
One small handfull of twigs, 5-6 1/2inch and larger limbs on a few pieces of news paper or brown bags from the package store and I get a clean hot burn started. No sooty black smoke like with fatwood or lighter pine.


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## clemsonfor (Jan 8, 2012)

Southern Yellow pine cones from the current year that are dry will burn like Hell for about 30 seconds.


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## slackercruster (Jan 8, 2012)

Is the commercial fatwood treated with some fire starting agent or is it all natural and not treated? I figured they soak them in something.


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## Huntindog1 (Jan 8, 2012)

I think it has the saps from the wood that burns since its split so thinly the temps will get up hot enough to ignite the sap in the wood.


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## clemsonfor (Jan 8, 2012)

BASOD said:
			
		

> I think LL Beans fatwood is actually imported from south America, probably from some rainforest clearcut.
> the heart pine/lighter pine mentoined above is abundunt in the woods around my house, when all the exterior wood has rotted away the pith is left, lights easily but I don't think it really burns fast/hot enough for a goord fire starter.  I've noted the dark black smoke from Bean's fatwood(I've gotten a box or two for x-mas gifts in the past) and from the lighter pine my GF picks up when on our woods walks.
> They both seem full of resin that I can't help but think it's plating out on a cold liner during a fresh fire cold start.
> I've made it from pine stump, best time to cut is spring when sap is running, let stump sit for a few weeks then cut and split/season for atleast a year better 2 even if small kindling.
> ...



I does get hot enough to start a fire. Also all the smoke will plate a cold chimney.  And cutting a lighter wood stump does not matter, as its dead. Its forms in the "heartwood" of a tree which is dead regardless of the tree a live or dead, but you yourself said you pick it up when the rest of the stuff rots off the stump leaving the heart, so how can waiting till "sap" rises have anything to do with the moisture content of the lighteer wood?  You dont want to split to much at once as the resin which actually burns will dry out and it will not be as effective. The stuff feels damp when fresh split and when burned will ooze the resin in a thick tar like substance.

No this wood sold as fatwood is not soaked in anything, its naturally flamable. Its used to make turpentine or tars way back in the day its highly flamable.


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## clemsonfor (Jan 8, 2012)

Just went out to check and the Hunk i been whittlin off fire starter pieces for this year has been in my yard either since this summer or for a few years im not really sure, but the tree has been dead for at least 20 years but i would say more like 30 years.

The fresh split end i just took some off of read 16% moisture content.  Like i said this is from a pine that i have no doubt has been dead for 20 years and it was only about an 8" round im splitting from a stump, and still 16%.

Take what i say how you want it but i am from Yellow pine country here in the south. I am born raised and educated as a forester here in SC. I have seen and been around the stuff my whole life and timber is my profession.


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## Ubookz (Jan 8, 2012)

Nothing new from me but I break up branches and twigs and split short 2X6-4's scrap,the thinner the splits the better plus bark for kindling, corrugated cardboard.I don't do overnight burns and have time to start morning fires. Usually my temp. drops 10 deg. to 60, sometimes a little cooler.

I saw online this person in Nova Scotia scrapes the bubbles of pine pitch off trees and puts it on birch bark as a kindling fire starter.


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## clemsonfor (Jan 8, 2012)

Ubookz said:
			
		

> Nothing new from me but I break up branches and twigs and split short 2X6-4's scrap,the thinner the splits the better plus bark for kindling, corrugated cardboard.I don't do overnight burns and have time to start morning fires. Usually my temp. drops 10 deg. to 60, sometimes a little cooler.
> 
> I saw online this person in Nova Scotia scrapes the bubbles of pine pitch off trees and puts it on birch bark as a kindling fire starter.



I have seen "pro" advice about not using acrboard in your stove as the resins in it will either burn to hot or gum up your stove cant remember what?  I just burn plain paper in mine. Or will burn press cardboard just not the corogated kind with glues.


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## pen (Jan 8, 2012)

Moved this over to the wood shed.

When splitting, I just set to the site some really nice straight grain pieces, especially if they are ash.  And split them into kindling as needed down the road.  

Never tried putting paraffin on a piece of kindling, but that may be something to play with.

pen


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## Thistle (Jan 9, 2012)

I use a mixture of twigs/branches from mine & neighbor's yard ( they're retired & it saves them cleanup),trimming shrubs/rosebushes,corncobs,few scattered pine cones found on sidewalk in a few public places,slivers from splitting & mostly scrap wood from my shop,jobsites I work at & edgings from milling.Never use more than a fraction of supply each winter cause am always adding to it year round.

Once in a while I'll add an old candle stub or the 'hollow ring' from a burned-out large candle to extend my Super Cedars a while longer.


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## woodmeister (Jan 9, 2012)

take an egg carton fill it with chainsaw dust then pour melted wax over the dozen cells when cooled cut into 12 individual starters. They usually burn for 10-15 minutes, they work perfect for stoves as well as boilers, smell good too.


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## HeatsTwice (Jan 9, 2012)

woodmeister said:
			
		

> take an egg carton fill it with chainsaw dust then pour melted wax over the dozen cells when cooled cut into 12 individual starters. They usually burn for 10-15 minutes, they work perfect for stoves as well as boilers, smell good too.



Yea, or get cupcake molds and/or old metal gutter downspouts which have been cut in half. Fill them with noodled saw dust and melted wax. Out comes a bar of fire starter you can cut up with a hatchet. Makes enough for about 20 - 30 starts. Each one (cup cake or bar segment) burns easily for 20 minutes if not more and will set alight even petrified wood. The pictures below show the wax starter bars bottom side up. The top side has many of the noodled chips sticking out - each creating a candle like starting point which quickly sets the whole bar on fire.


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## cptoneleg (Jan 9, 2012)

slackercruster said:
			
		

> Is there a way to make fatwood firestarters at home?




  You don't make true fatwood mother nature does, parts of some pines in some places, usually at the stump, smells like turpentine, and you can cut it right off the stump, and light it and it burns like it were soaked in kerosene.


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