Fatwood vs. newspaper?

So, I won some fatwood starter sticks at a local shop's drawing. I tried them out in the stove the other day. Yes, they burn like the Dickens, but, with alot of dark black smoke. Would you choose these or plain newsprint for a fire starter?

 

I'm a creature of habit and go with what I know, so it's paper and kindling for me. However I've never tried much of anything different. Just curious of the cost of the fatwood if you had to buy?

 

Dunno. Google?

 

I'm cheap so I don't but fire starters lol We use kindling or rich pine...maybe the same thing you call fatwood? We use no paper...just a blow torch head on a small propane bottle. Already have them for my lanterns I use for night fishing.

 

Little kindling and a propane torch. Simple, anyone can do it. A one pound can of propane lasts more than a season.

 

Are there other variable you can tweak to make them burn without smoking?
Say, using less each time, more air intake?

We started with newsprint and kindling, but began making firestarters. Those are a little work to make, but are soooo easy to use.

Sca

 

All I use is fatwood. Can’t see how it will harm anything. It’s all natural and long gone before engaging the cat. Don’t even use kindling. Just stuff the stove full of splits and 3 pieces of fatwood in between. Light it, close the door and walk away.

 

Been using fatwood for years. No newspaper, no smoke, more often than not I don't even need kindling, and usually it only takes one piece (benefit of having well-seasoned wood). Another benefit is that a small container of fatwood on the mantle looks much more appealing than a pile of old newspapers laying around.

 

What makes fatwood such a good fire starter is the organic compound terpene (turpentine) in the pine.
1. In a wood stove application, the relative quantity of terpene soaked wood borders on negligible.
2. In a cat stove, you're most likely in bypass mode so the cat should not be affected.
3. terpene burns extremely fast and in fire-starting mode you normally have a high rate of air flow, so there's not gonna be any terpene left to affect a cat.


Some of these same observations can be applied to wax and other fire starting methods.

USe dry wood and you will/should be minimizing the amount of fires tarting materials.

 

Super Cedars, nuff said.

 

I just use dry kindling. No paper. (never heard of fatwood til now). I’m way overloaded with dry kindling from around the splitter.

 

One sheet of newsprint with pitch rich Doug Fir kindling on top. Heavy splits of Doug Fir on top of that. Roaring fire in minutes and move the air to reburn mode. As indicated, we have a reburn stove, not catalytic.

 

Wow what a thread revival! From June of '15!

 

Rutland Safe Lite Fire Starter Squares
best fire starters for the money ,good as any, better than others , they don't fall apart

 

We just got done with making fire starters, perhaps 200 in the last week or so.
Fairly cheap, mostly with materials we had on hand.
And, easy to obtain ingredients....even if the fire starter company goes belly-up, we'll not be dead in the water (one of the big resaons I didn't do a pellet stove...too much risk with supply, economy...)

 

Fatwood all day every day. All you need is 1 or 2 sticks. You don't need to use it like kindling. It's a firestarter. I lay down some kindling, then lay 2 sticks perpendicular to the kindling, light it, then top off with more kindling. And poof it's an instant fire.

 

I use newspaper and pine skinny-wood.

 

Don't know if what we use is fat wood but what we call "lighter wood" is southern yellow pine and best if it comes off of a stump that's been there for a few years. Cut it (the stump) off and split into kindling size. Also use some red cedar that's been down a while as kindling/fire starter too.

 

fatwood here...super cedars for the bbq pits