I'll agree with WD. Don't waste your store bought fatwood on charcoal. Get a starter (I've always called it a chimney) like he has pictured. It gets the charcoal going quick and gets them all burning evenly.

I'll look into, thanks.

yeah,i go to home depot and lowes hardware stores and i get giant boxes about 14x12x12in full of fat wood for $5.00 bucks.its probably 10 pounds of it.

the pieces are bigger so i have to cut them down but its totally worth the money.its good resinous fatwood too.

another interesting fire making tip..........

i know some people have tryed magnesium blocks with a ferro rod before and i know that some people complain about scraping off a good pile of magnesium.

it could've changed since last year but i could go on e-bay and but 1 pound bags of magnesium shavings.they are left overs from some milling process.

let me tell you.one pound of mag will last 20 years.you really get a lot since its so light and it comes in a HUGE zip-lock bag.

its only a few bucks.i got too.

i also got cotton balls that came already powdered like a donut in ultra fine mag dust.these things catch a spark better than anything,period.

if you are trying to get a fire going and you have it started but the wood is a bit wet and doesnt really want to burn you can throw a pinch of mag shavings in their and its like throwing gas in a fire,everything goes right up and its easy to cary a small bit of shavings in a pill bottle.

mag can be dangerous.it burns extremely hot and will burn out our retinas if ou watch it burn just like welding.it is also tremendously flamable and their is no putting it out once lit.

Thanks for the info northern1.

I was going to open up this package and put it in a sealable plastic container, will it be ok in there? How long will it keep fresh in the container?

It will be fine once opened. Once I open a bag of fatwood, I leave it open. Smaller pieces I sometimes put in a small ziplock bag. Sometimes I just carry around the loose sticks. Then don’t need to be kept fresh. They will work just fine. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Thanks Andy.

Learn to find your own Fatwood bro and then the cost of using more won't be a concern....also it's good fun looking for the stuff !!!!

Unfortunately, pines don't grow wild all over the US. Like here for instance. So, some of us have to buy our fatwood. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

yeah!

Was out looking for some last weekend, non could be found at this time, in that area. I'm still looking.

I need to go look for some. There are a million pines here in Georgia. Is fatwood mostly found on a dead pine? Is it mostly at the trunk?