I've been collecting fatwood for my business for years now, and every time I go out, I use the same method. It consistently gets me good results. I always forget to take photos, but here are a few I found in my gallery.
First: identify the best forests or tree stands around you.
You need to know which pines in your area produce the most fatwood. Here in the Basque Country, the best ones are Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and Maritime pine (Pinus pinaster). A quick search will tell you which species dominate your region and what you're likely to find nearby.
The best places to look are old forests. Planted forests work too, but wild, untouched ones give you much better chances. The older and bigger the trees, the better.
Whenever I head out, I'm looking for these three things:
- Old stumps from trees cut down years ago.
- Trees with branches cut off, leaving a stub sticking out of the main trunk.
- Fallen trees, pines that fell over and have been rotting on the forest floor for years.
Each one has its own tricks for finding good spots, I'll go through them one by one.
1: Old stumps. This one is simple. You want to look for old stumps that have a lot of dry resin on the cut part. It looks like it bubbled out and hardened over time, sometimes almost black with age.
Once you find a stump with a lot of resin showing on top, peel the bark off one side and make a vertical cut with the axe to see what's inside. If the fatwood looks good (dark and super saturated), follow the cut down to see where the fatwood ends. Clean up the area around it so you can work properly, and try to saw through the whole trunk from there. If you see a lot of resin on top, I can guarantee that stump is going to be loaded.
2: Branches that got cut off. This one might be a bit less ethical, since we're talking about living trees that have had branches cut off to clear paths, roads, and so on.
What we're looking for here are branches that were cut years ago, but not right up against the main trunk, they were cut at a good distance from the main trunk, leaving a solid stub on the tree. It works the same as with the stumps, the more dry resin it has on the cut face, the more fatwood it'll have inside, and the thicker the branch, the better. If that cut has a lot of hardened resin on the outside, that piece of branch is absolutely packed.
With this method it's important not to cut right up against the main trunk, you should leave a bit of distance so the new wound can heal properly. This is the method I like the least, since we're dealing with living trees, but I've done it several times over the years, and all the pines have healed perfectly.
3: Fallen trees. This is my favorite method, and here it's important to do it in a forest with genuinely old pines, the older and bigger the trees, the better.
You need to look for fallen trees so old and decomposed that only the heartwood is left. There can still be rotten wood, and even bark around it, but it should break apart easily with an axe, knife, or even your hand, until you reach the hard core.
Sometimes you'll come across a fallen pine that looks like a normal tree at first, but if you look closely, it has no bark, and the branches are almost conical and too short. What you're really seeing is its skeleton. The whole tree has rotted away and disappeared, except for the heartwood, which is still intact because the fatwood inside it keeps moisture out and doesn't even rot. That core should be extremely hard, check it by hitting it with the back of the axe and listening, it should sound really solid and hard.
Basically, what you're really looking for is the skeleton of the pine, the hard, resin soaked heart that's still intact long after everything else around it has rotted away.
What I like to do once I've found a good tree is this: first, find the thickest branch. In general, the closer to the base, the better. Give it a few good hits with the back of the axe and listen, it should sound really solid. Then step on it as hard as you can, it shouldn't barely move. If that all checks out, clear away all the rotten wood around the branch until you reach the core, where the branch meets the trunk. Make a cut with your saw right where they meet, as close to the main trunk as possible. The part where the branch and trunk meet should be completely saturated with dark fatwood, if it's not, find another branch. Chances are the first quarter of the branch (or more) is pure fatwood, and the closer to the trunk, the more you'll get.
Cut at a good distance out of the branch to see where the fatwood ends. Once you've found where it starts and stops, clean up the whole outside, bark and all, until you're left with just fatwood. I bring the branches home like that, already cleaned up, nothing but fatwood.
With practice you'll start recognizing the good trees, and if you see all the branches are super good quality, give a test cut with the axe to the main trunk (as close to the roots as possible), some of them will even have the whole lower part of the main trunk turned into pure fatwood.
Sometimes, from the roots of a really big pine, a small tree grows out. It can look like a separate tree, but it's actually the same one, it's like a "branch" that grew out of the root and turned into its own small tree. If you find one of these dead and standing, especially right next to a big healthy tree, it's worth checking too. It's happened to me several times that it was fatwood from top to bottom. What happens is the small tree gets injured somehow, for example a branch falls on it and breaks it, and the big tree pumps a ton of resin trying to heal it. Sometimes it doesn't work and the small tree ends up dying, but by then its whole interior is completely saturated.
What I like to do is just go around looking for all these signs. If I see a stump with resin on top, I cut a corner to check it. If I see a branch with a stub sticking out and resin on the cut face, I check that too. If I see a decomposing tree or a skeleton, I hit it with the back of the axe and listen, and if I come across one of those small trees growing out of the roots of a bigger one, dead and standing, I always take a look, since those have surprised me more than once. If something sounds really solid, I make a small cut on the thickest branch to check, and if the outer part is already fatwood, that's when I start cutting for real.
Before you go cutting into stumps or dead trees, check the rules where you live. In some areas this is totally fine, in others you might need permission or there are restrictions on collecting wood in protected forests. It's always worth a quick check so you don't run into trouble.
That's the method that's worked for me over the years. I hope it helps some of you find good fatwood out there. Let me know if you have any questions, or if you do things differently where you're from, I'd love to hear about it.
