# Lightard Stump, Lightard Knots, Lightard Post, Pictures



## redlevel

They say a picture is worth a thousand words:

Lightard Stump.  The tree was probably cut fifty years ago.






Lightard fence post.  No telling how long it has been in the ground.  I would guess minimum sixty-plus years.  It is still solid.  





These are fair examples of lightard knots.  I picked them up in the woods today.  They occur where a limb branches from the trunk or from a larger branch.  For some reason, resin is more concentrated there.  when the sapwood rots, often all that is left is a "lightard knot".





Old buildings such as the one these doors are on are built mostly of fat lightard.  This barn is probably 125 years old or older.  If you have ever seen one of these structures burn, you know what a black smoke they put up and how quickly they are consumed.





This is a "heart pine" floor.  Same as lightard.  Before planing, sanding, and several coats of clear polyurethane (no stain, just clear), these boards looked very much like the boards in the old doors in the previous picture.  The darker board where the floor transitions to tile is particularly interesting because you can see the old saw-kerf marks.  These boards came off an old chicken coop and barn on the place.  The darker boards have more heart, the lighter ones more sapwood.





Heart Pine table built for us by "Buzzy" Smith from Americus.  The table is set for Thanksgiving Dinner.





All these pictures were made on my wife's farm here in North Taylor County.  As you can see, we love our "fat lightard" floors and furniture.


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## 7Mag Hunter

Good pics....

We have heart pine floors thru our kitchen, master bedroom, living
room and dining room....They were actually pine trees cut from
our property, and prepared in an old sawmill in Paulding County
30 yrs ago when our house was built...12" wide boards with
poly overcoat....


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## General Lee

Beautiful.Thanks for sharing with us.............


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## discounthunter

great pictures but "heart" pine wood is not fat lighter. if it was your dinner table would be a very sticky if anything hot was placed on it.


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## redlevel

discounthunter said:


> great pictures but "heart" pine wood is not fat lighter. if it was your dinner table would be a very sticky if anything hot was placed on it.



Yes it is.  

That is why you don't put anything real hot on it without a trivet or a "hot pad" under it.  Just normal hot food on a plate won't affect it, but if you put a hot pan just off the stove and left it, it would start drawing the resin out very quickly.

Now, I agree, there are degrees of "heartness", and the boards in that table aren't nearly as fat as, for instance, that stump.  But if you took those boards in the table and split them up, you would still have some pretty good lightard.


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## sweet 16

I think some people are advertising heart pine wood for floors as a long leaf pine that was cut in thte last couple of years. My definition is wood from 100 year old cotton warehouses or pine wood from the bottom of rivers . I have a mantle ,floors and hunt board made from my 1885 family home sight. What do ya'll consider heart pine floors?


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## Vernon Holt

It is true that by any definition, a heart pine board is a board cut from the heartwood of an old growth yellow pine.  It could come from a very old Longleaf, Slash, or even Loblolly it it were old enough.  Any sapwood (light colored wood) would disqualify the board as being truly "heart pine".

So much for theory.  In actuality, lumber is being marketed today as "heart pine" flooring that contains 30 to 50% sapwood.  This will make up into a floor that is at best a mix of light and dark wood.  This will in no way compare with flooring that is fine grained, quarter sawn to have vertical grain, and all of a uniform moderately dark color.  It is literally true that "they don't make it anymore".

As stated by sweet16, any genuine heart pine lumber available today would come from some salvage operation.  The lower Altamaha all the way to Darien contains a vast supply of "sinker" logs that were lost when log rafts were accidentally broken up, or when unusually dense and heavy logs sunk after they reached the log boom in Darien or St. Simons.

Over the years there has been some success by entrepreneurs to recover some of this timber.  This was the case until DNR interveigned and enacted a permitting system which required a fee so high as to make the venture highly speculative.  As far as I know this killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

About five years ago while traveling thru Mount Vernon GA I noted an attractive roadside sign that gave a lumber company name and stated that they were manufacturers of "heartwood yellow pine flooring".  Out of curiosity, I turned around and visited the mill operation and their sales offices which was floored with a sample of their offering.

In looking at their log supply, I was surprised at the quality of the logs on hand.  They were indeed rather large logs that contained a surprising amount of heartwood.  I learned that they were able to attain this quality of log by paying a premium for a very select grade of log.  Many were hauled well over 100 miles.  Most came from small plots around old Church grounds, small lots of old growth timber that some old timer had refused to cut until his passing at which time the family cashed in the chips.  Some logs were cut during extreme drought when loggers could penetrate deep into timbered bays and swamps.

I looked over the product that they were labeling "heart pine" and saw that the product was well done but still contained an average of 30% sapwood.  You can see that it buyer beware when it comes to purchasing pine flooring that is manufactured from even the very best logs available today.

It is a sad commentary that most of the South's fine, old growth timber was shipped by schooner to points worldwide.  This accounts for the fact that only homes, barns, and other structures that date around the civil war period will be found to contain this kind of timber.


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## Lukikus2

Found a whole tree just full of turpentine. One match and a chunk of this and it's campfire time!


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## Artfuldodger

Could you get it sawed into boards and make a table? Just think of all the old houses with boards in them that are almost that fat.


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## Dr. Strangelove

I used to date a girl whose family had the foresight years ago to pull down a bunch of old barns and cabins "for folks that didn't necessarily choose to live there of their own free will" on their property.  They stacked they wood properly and have floored several of their houses with it over the years, it's gorgeous.


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## Scrapy

Vernon Holt said:


> It is true that by any definition, a heart pine board is a board cut from the heartwood of an old growth yellow pine.  It could come from a very old Longleaf, Slash, or even Loblolly it it were old enough.  Any sapwood (light colored wood) would disqualify the board as being truly "heart pine".
> 
> So much for theory.  In actuality, lumber is being marketed today as "heart pine" flooring that contains 30 to 50% sapwood.  This will make up into a floor that is at best a mix of light and dark wood.  This will in no way compare with flooring that is fine grained, quarter sawn to have vertical grain, and all of a uniform moderately dark color.  It is literally true that "they don't make it anymore".
> 
> As stated by sweet16, any genuine heart pine lumber available today would come from some salvage operation.  The lower Altamaha all the way to Darien contains a vast supply of "sinker" logs that were lost when log rafts were accidentally broken up, or when unusually dense and heavy logs sunk after they reached the log boom in Darien or St. Simons.
> 
> Over the years there has been some success by entrepreneurs to recover some of this timber.  This was the case until DNR interveigned and enacted a permitting system which required a fee so high as to make the venture highly speculative.  As far as I know this killed the goose that laid the golden egg.
> 
> About five years ago while traveling thru Mount Vernon GA I noted an attractive roadside sign that gave a lumber company name and stated that they were manufacturers of "heartwood yellow pine flooring".  Out of curiosity, I turned around and visited the mill operation and their sales offices which was floored with a sample of their offering.
> 
> In looking at their log supply, I was surprised at the quality of the logs on hand.  They were indeed rather large logs that contained a surprising amount of heartwood.  I learned that they were able to attain this quality of log by paying a premium for a very select grade of log.  Many were hauled well over 100 miles.  Most came from small plots around old Church grounds, small lots of old growth timber that some old timer had refused to cut until his passing at which time the family cashed in the chips.  Some logs were cut during extreme drought when loggers could penetrate deep into timbered bays and swamps.
> 
> I looked over the product that they were labeling "heart pine" and saw that the product was well done but still contained an average of 30% sapwood.  You can see that it buyer beware when it comes to purchasing pine flooring that is manufactured from even the very best logs available today.
> 
> It is a sad commentary that most of the South's fine, old growth timber was shipped by schooner to points worldwide.  This accounts for the fact that only homes, barns, and other structures that date around the civil war period will be found to contain this kind of timber.



So true.  You can get a glimps of it today in an old field grown wolf tree that is thirty 5 years old and 30" diameter with 14 " diameter heartwood that hasn't even set up yet. Pluss, then at best, must be quarter sawn if not half sawn heart ...  Sometimes I get to sitting in my country Methodist church when the Preacher gets side tracked and start to counting the rings on the pew ahead ( that is a secret and do not tell the wife and kids ). Personally I like the beauty of the fine grain stuff. But since I got kids fixin to go to school I ax the Lord to get them Hybred trees I hand planted to growing even faster.


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## Lukikus2

I'm not sure if what I found would be good for furniture it is so saturated. I just picked up a load for firewood and really didn't realize what I had until my chainsaw about caught on fire. I've used lightard knot and stump before but setting a match to this stuff is almost like lighting kerosene.


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## Gary Mercer

My little brother made cabinet doors from the "Drowned Wood" from the South GA rivers.  I think he also got some from the Ashepoo and Cumbahee in SC.
Made beautiful cabinets that went into a multi million dollar renovation of an old home in Charleston, SC.  He had a pretty good stash of this wood in his shop when he died.  (I think his son in law got it.)
He said that it was very hard on his tools.  He thought it might have been partially petrified, or the sand from the river had penetrated the grain.  But I remember seeing him work some of it, and you could still smell the turpentine in the air.
I would love to have a table of that wood.  It was under water for over 100 years.


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## chehawknapper

Chehaw Park in Albany, Ga. still has several patches of true "second growth" longleaf. Second growth refers to trees that were seedlings in place when the virgin forest was cut. All of these longleaf have cat faces on them from being worked for turpentine. The park was one of the first State parks and the log cabins were built by the WPA 1937-1939. There is a WPA medallion still in the steps at one of them. Over the years, as the trees have died because of lightning strikes, Ipps beetles or were thinned, I have checked the growth rings and they all fall into between 90 and 110 years old regardless of their size. On some of the smaller diameter trees, you can only read the growth rings with a glass. All of these trees are 80 - 90% heart.


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## Artfuldodger

Lukikus2 said:


> I'm not sure if what I found would be good for furniture it is so saturated. I just picked up a load for firewood and really didn't realize what I had until my chainsaw about caught on fire. I've used lightard knot and stump before but setting a match to this stuff is almost like lighting kerosene.



It would make a pretty fireplace mantle.

On second thought,


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## Scrapy

This might need to be on the cooking forum ,but as I understand it , #'s of folk in Southern California and New York City are into all things Cracker. Crackers, Cracker house Architecture, Cracker Cow, Cracker Horses . all things Cracker cep for Georgia Crackers cookies. Flarida  did a real first rate ad job on dattun. 

What I 'spose is us getting out there and chain sawing chips of lightwood and marketing it to those epicurions  to "smoke" meat with.  Have to be high dollar stuff what with all the bar oil and chains and bars we will burn up. Just price accordingly is all I reckon with a slight profit margin in mind.


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## poolecw

We call that stuff Fat Lighter in Toombs county. My grandpa logged timber for over 40 years.  We never ran out of fat lighter for starting fires in out fireplaces.


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## shakey gizzard

poolecw said:


> We call that stuff *Fat Lighter *in Toombs county. My grandpa logged timber for over 40 years.  We never ran out of fat lighter for starting fires in out fireplaces.



That's what we always called it! It has more names than uses!


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## Scrapy

shakey gizzard said:


> That's what we always called it! It has more names than uses!



It's got thousands of uses. Synthetic base is cheaper and easier these days. The same chemical components are still in thousands of products that originally came only from lightwood.


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## jimbo4116

Vernon Holt said:


> It is true that by any definition, a heart pine board is a board cut from the heartwood of an old growth yellow pine.  It could come from a very old Longleaf, Slash, or even Loblolly it it were old enough.  Any sapwood (light colored wood) would disqualify the board as being truly "heart pine".
> 
> So much for theory.  In actuality, lumber is being marketed today as "heart pine" flooring that contains 30 to 50% sapwood.  This will make up into a floor that is at best a mix of light and dark wood.  This will in no way compare with flooring that is fine grained, quarter sawn to have vertical grain, and all of a uniform moderately dark color.  It is literally true that "they don't make it anymore".
> 
> As stated by sweet16, any genuine heart pine lumber available today would come from some salvage operation.  The lower Altamaha all the way to Darien contains a vast supply of "sinker" logs that were lost when log rafts were accidentally broken up, or when unusually dense and heavy logs sunk after they reached the log boom in Darien or St. Simons.
> 
> Over the years there has been some success by entrepreneurs to recover some of this timber.  This was the case until DNR interveigned and enacted a permitting system which required a fee so high as to make the venture highly speculative.  As far as I know this killed the goose that laid the golden egg.
> 
> About five years ago while traveling thru Mount Vernon GA I noted an attractive roadside sign that gave a lumber company name and stated that they were manufacturers of "heartwood yellow pine flooring".  Out of curiosity, I turned around and visited the mill operation and their sales offices which was floored with a sample of their offering.
> 
> In looking at their log supply, I was surprised at the quality of the logs on hand.  They were indeed rather large logs that contained a surprising amount of heartwood.  I learned that they were able to attain this quality of log by paying a premium for a very select grade of log.  Many were hauled well over 100 miles.  Most came from small plots around old Church grounds, small lots of old growth timber that some old timer had refused to cut until his passing at which time the family cashed in the chips.  Some logs were cut during extreme drought when loggers could penetrate deep into timbered bays and swamps.
> 
> I looked over the product that they were labeling "heart pine" and saw that the product was well done but still contained an average of 30% sapwood.  You can see that it buyer beware when it comes to purchasing pine flooring that is manufactured from even the very best logs available today.
> 
> It is a sad commentary that most of the South's fine, old growth timber was shipped by schooner to points worldwide.  This accounts for the fact that only homes, barns, and other structures that date around the civil war period will be found to contain this kind of timber.



Salvaging old warehouse and cotton mills is a profitable buisiness these days. Most shipped north for flooring.  Know of one cotton mill building locally that was sold for $100,000 and the timbers for rafters, joists and seals average 30'long and 12X16s.  They salvaged over $700,000 in "heart pine".  Mill building was constructed in 1901.  I worked for years in an old grocery whse. built in 1903. Seals and joists were so lightered that you couldn't drive a 20d nail into them with a 2# hammer.
105 by 65' 2 story building.


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## rydert

Great info in this thread....


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## 7Mag Hunter

Artfuldodger said:


> It would make a pretty fireplace mantle.
> 
> On second thought,




True "lightered pine" or "fat wood"
has to much pine tar in it and would be dangerous to use as a fireplace mantle.....

I have 300-400 lbs of fat wood right
now....Lightning hit a tree in my front yard several years ago and when the pines 
were cut several had
5'-10' sections completely saturated and almost petrified (hard) with sap..I have
 already burned 300-400 lbs of the stuff this last summer..


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## Scrapy

7Mag Hunter said:


> True "lightered pine" or "fat wood"
> has to much pine tar in it and would be dangerous to use as a fireplace mantle.....
> 
> I have 300-400 lbs of fat wood right
> now....Lightning hit a tree in my front yard several years ago and when the pines
> were cut several had
> 5'-10' sections completely saturated and almost petrified (hard) with sap..I have
> already burned 300-400 lbs of the stuff this last summer..



Kind of dangerous to use more than necessary in a fireplace. Those gums and resins condense on the inside of the chimney and over time they build up until one day you have a real hot fire and they catch up. Give you a chimney fire that will make the whole house whistle.


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## shakey gizzard

Scrapy said:


> It's got thousands of uses. *Synthetic base is cheaper and easier these days*. The same chemical components are still in thousands of products that originally came only from lightwood.


Exactly!


Scrapy said:


> Kind of dangerous to use more than necessary in a fireplace. *Those gums and resins condense on the inside of the chimney and over time they build up until one day you have a real hot fire and they catch up. *Give you a chimney fire that will make the whole house whistle.



Fact!


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## crokseti

I have a stump of it in the back yard which I started harvesting off of yesterday. Solid fat lighter stump which formed from a twin trunk pine forming from a common taproot. Ever how it died left solid sapwood 3 ft. above ground with what looks to be about 3 ft. below and 16 inches dia.      Plenty for fire starters for a couple seasons


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## shakey gizzard

crokseti said:


> I have a stump of it in the back yard which I started harvesting off of yesterday. Solid fat lighter stump which formed from a twin trunk pine forming from a common taproot. Ever how it died left solid sapwood *3 ft. above ground *with what looks to be about 3 ft. below and 16 inches dia.      Plenty for fire starters for a couple seasons



Should last awhile!


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## Scrapy

Scrapy said:


> This might need to be on the cooking forum ,but as I understand it , #'s of folk in Southern California and New York City are into all things Cracker. Crackers, Cracker house Architecture, Cracker Cow, Cracker Horses . all things Cracker cep for Georgia Crackers cookies. Flarida  did a real first rate ad job on dattun.
> 
> What I 'spose is us getting out there and chain sawing chips of lightwood and marketing it to those epicurions  to "smoke" meat with.  Have to be high dollar stuff what with all the bar oil and chains and bars we will burn up. Just price accordingly is all I reckon with a slight profit margin in mind.



Ya'll do know I tend to jest, Right?  Cookin anything, even in a cast iron skillet over lighteredrerederedd will ruin the taste of anything and everything round it. It is strictly for lighter, like diesel fuel or kerosene on better wood. My notion to chip it and send it to NY City just shows what a hole I can be at times. LOL


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## 7Mag Hunter

Scrapy said:


> Kind of dangerous to use more than necessary in a fireplace. Those gums and resins condense on the inside of the chimney and over time they build up until one day you have a real hot fire and they catch up. Give you a chimney fire that will make the whole house whistle.





I do not burn any pine in my fireplace or wood stoves....

I burn the stuff outside in my burn pile !!!!!!!


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## Vernon Holt

Scrapy said:


> Kind of dangerous to use more than necessary in a fireplace. Those gums and resins condense on the inside of the chimney and over time they build up until one day you have a real hot fire and they catch up. Give you a chimney fire that will make the whole house whistle.



Scrapy:  I have known people who lived their entire lives in the backwoods of the Lower Coastal Plains who have never burned anything for home heat except pure lightard.  They used lightard in the cook stove, wood heater and/or fireplace.

Most of them lived in old homes which should have burned long ago if your premise is correct.  I doubt seriously if they ever retained the services of a "chimney sweep".

Many of these same families would still be burning lightard today if it were readily available as in former times.


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## 7Mag Hunter

Vernon Holt said:


> Scrapy:  I have known people who lived their entire lives in the backwoods of the Lower Coastal Plains who have never burned anything for home heat except pure lightard.  They used lightard in the cook stove, wood heater and/or fireplace.
> 
> Most of them lived in old homes which should have burned long ago if your premise is correct.  I doubt seriously if they ever retained the services of a "chimney sweep".
> 
> Many of these same families would still be burning lightard today if it were readily available as in former times.




So true...I remember my Dad telling
me when he was little they did not like to cut Hardwoods for firewood because it was to hard to cut by hand (no chainsaws) and split....They used mostly pine, but they had real built for use Brick/rock chimneys....Not the prefab stuff in most homes today...

Each fall his did would "burn out" the
chimney to get bird nests and any leftover creosote from last winter...
Dad said he could remember fire coming out the top of the chimney to
make sure it was clear !!!!!!!!!!!


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## tree cutter 08

The oldest pine I've cut around here was around 175 years old and was only about 20 inches on the stump. Had about a 6 inch heart to it. Cut one the other day about 150 years old and had it sawed into 2x10's. It had a pretty good amount of heart to it. How old you guys think some of the virgin pines were?


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## ghadarits

I had some lighter knot in the back of my truck one time and a guy I worked with asked me what it was. When I explained that it would burn wet and that I use it to light fires in my fire place because I don't have a gas burner he got real interested. He asked me if I would take him to cut some. I told him to meet me and we would. Well he did and we cut him a bunch of it. Like he had 6in diameter logs of it and a lot of them. He was all excited about getting it. I knew he had a gas burner in his fire place so told him to use it very sparingly several times.

Long story short he didn't listen. Another guy I worked with was at his house that very night and he said that he built a fire in the fire place and a few minutes later it sounded like a jet engine and that flames were going way up the chimney. They had to bring in a garden hose to put it out.

All I said was I told you not to use a lot of it. I believe he was on the bottom half of average intelligence.


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## Jeff Raines

Found this today


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## Gaswamp

nice


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## fishingtiger

I can practically smell that fat lighter through my computer screen. Good stuff!


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## Scrapy

Jeff Raines said:


> Found this today



Obviously, lightwood is a renewable resource.  The rings are very far apart to be old, slow growth pine. Even sap wood, hybrid loblolly can turn to lightered under the right conditions. Check out Paraquat and turpentine on the web.


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## blood on the ground

Jeff Raines said:


> Found this today



That's a nice find Jeff!


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## Cool Hand Luke

*Knot*

Try to keep some around the shop to start a fire in our burn barrel. From Taylor Co.


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## Lukikus2

Love this stuff.

Guess pics won't load with maintenance going on


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## NCHillbilly

A few years ago, we had a great big chunk of fat lighter (what we call it here,) sittin' beside the wood stove in camp, with a hatchet to knock off splinters to start a fire. A buddy of mine was a bit intoxicated, and he threw the whole big chunk of fat lighter in the stove. In a few minutes, the stove was glowing red, there was a spout of fire shootin' 20 feet out the top of the chimney, sounded like a 747. We thought it was gonna burn the shack down.


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## lagrangedave

They use to harvest pine knees in south Florida. They looked like cypress but were fat lightard...........they used it to make nitro glycerin.....sparks started a train load on fire............you could see the fire for 40 miles...................it melted the train..............


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## Lukikus2

Enough to make a thousand fires or just one big fast hot one


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## ancienttrails

Great thread,times are changing cat face and good wood is rare. Most people come south and think wow look at old oaks an trees that are in what was field and pasture 50 or 60 years ago.


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