Punkwood ID


woodlandman105

woodlandman105

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This is kind of a two part thread. I have done a little searching on the forum and have yet to truly find something on how to ID punkwood. I did see IA Woodsman's forum post on it, and found it very helpful at defining and using punkwood. If someone has a tip on actually finding punkwood, please post up. The other part is if the following picture is punkwood or not.
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Any help is appreciated.
Thanks.
 
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punkwood is basically decayed wood that has lost all its strength and hardness and is almost like a sponge. Your best bet is to just get dead branches off of the ground and look for it inside. Also logs that have been sitting for a while are almost all punky.
 
Yeah, there's not a whole lot to it - if you spend any time in the woods, you'll probably have run across punkwood many times. Scott pretty much nailed it, you look at downed wood and look for the soft, spongy and/or crumbly stuff that's part rotted. Basically once it stops feeling like normal wood and starts feeling more like old cork, then you've got punkwood. That picture you posted looks like punkwood to me.

Any wood that's been down a good amount of time is likely to be punky, so downed logs are a common source. Some woods such as Birch rot much faster than others as well, though I'm not sure what other ones have that property besides birch. Anyway, if you go around looking at dead wood (especially the stuff on the ground but even dead standing stuff that's old enough) and poke around you'll be sure to find some punkwood in short order.
 
Interesting, I saw an episode of "Alaskan Highway Patrol" or something like that but anyways... one of the officers was talking to a guy (Indian) who had a truckload of "punkwood" and what he showed looked like a fungus, conk to be more exact. Looked close to tinder fungus or artist conk and was about a 5-7" disc, by chance are there two different things called by the same name i.e, rotting wood and a conk?

From what was described they process it by burning it in a metal can, then mix the ashes into tobacco and smoke them together, it sells by the pound and I quote "It get's you real dizzy!":4:

note: this place has the coolest smilies
 
Thanks guys. I have seen stuff like that, I just did not know if there was only certain trees that it will take a spark, ECT.
GODSPEED, yes they do :4:.
 
woodlandman105 said:
Thanks guys. I have seen stuff like that, I just did not know if there was only certain trees that it will take a spark, ECT.
GODSPEED, yes they do :4:.
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Like they said, FEELS spongy.

Not certain trees, but I believe that the hard hardwoods work better, but many times the decay will be so much you won't know what kind of tree it is, so you experiement.

Examples of hard hardwoods would be oak, hickory, walnut, dogwood, persimmon, honeylocust, etc.

Examples of soft hardwoods would be cottonwood, tulip tree, basswood, magnolia, black gum , box elder, etc.
 
My favorite kind of punkwood is the kind that has fatwood inside it. I pitch the punkwood and take the fatwood home and put it on my fatwood shelf right above my birchbark shelf.

:)

Punkwood is good for making smudges to keep the bugs away and for tanning hides.
 
Iz said:
Wood,
The first part of this vid shows a good spot to find dry punkwood in prolonged wet periods.
Bow drill,punkwood and smoking mushrooms - YouTube

The underside of leaning, dead standing trees that have gone to punk.
Good stuff.
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Thanks IZ, that is good stuff. Hope the finger's OK ;). If I have time tomorrow, I will head out and try to find some punkwood to get a fire going.
 
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Cool, man. Looking forward to what you come up with.
 
Iz said:
Cool, man. Looking forward to what you come up with.
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I made a effort to get a fire going, but just did not have time today. However I did collect what I think is punkwood. It is dry, found inside a dead tree, and has a fairly spongy feel to it; guess I wont know till I light it up with my firesteel. I'm free tomorrow, so I am defiantly going out to get a fire going using punkwood.
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And this is what I collected:
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Looking like punkwood?
 
Looks good to me, too man.
Give it a spark, it should smolder for hours if you have a big enough piece(s).
 
woodlandman105 said:
It did not take a spark. I will hunt more, and see if I can find some that will.
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Try lighting it with a lighter or match too, and see if it will smolder. I've had punkwood that wouldn't "ignite" but it sat there barely smoldering for a really long time, even though you couldn't see a red glow.
 
Thanks guys. I went to the garage and lit it with a lighter. It started smoldering after about 1 second. I split the piece in half and touched them to one another to see if the other part would start doing the same thing, it did. So I think I will try what gaga said, and give it another go with the firesteel when I go out in a few days. It might have been wet like IZ suggested, because I collected it right after the rain stopped. One thing that just donned on me is when I collected it, I did not flip the log over to the underside like IZ mentioned in his video, so it was probably just wet. Beginner mistake :25:.
 
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After a rain like that I usually don't even mess with any on the ground. I try to find dead standing wood that has gone to punk. It it's leaning then I get it from the underside.
Sometimes you can still find it dry on the ground after a rain though so you did good by giving it a shot.
 
u

Punkwood is very much like a sponge. That means it holds moisture very well. I find that in my area (we get over a meter of rainfall a year) that finding punkwood that will take a spark in winter is pretty much not happening. Just the humidity in the air will saturate punk on the underside of logs and standing wood.

You can make it useful at any time though by charring it in a tin. Of course this assumes you have a tin with some char in it to start a fire in the first place. But it's an easy to find material for replenishing your supply.

In the summer time it'll light up from a ferro rod no problem.
 
Mykos said:
Punkwood is very much like a sponge. That means it holds moisture very well. I find that in my area (we get over a meter of rainfall a year) that finding punkwood that will take a spark in winter is pretty much not happening. Just the humidity in the air will saturate punk on the underside of logs and standing wood.

You can make it useful at any time though by charring it in a tin. Of course this assumes you have a tin with some char in it to start a fire in the first place. But it's an easy to find material for replenishing your supply.

In the summer time it'll light up from a ferro rod no problem.
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Good point. Charring works dang good with punk. You don't need a tin though, which is another cool thing about it.
Bushcraft : Char without a tin - YouTube

Punk wood is some great stuff.
 
Iz said:
Good point. Charring works dang good with punk. You don't need a tin though, which is another cool thing about it.
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Do you think it would work the same if you burred it in the ashes right next to the fire? It would not burn, but get really hot and possibly remove the moisture. Just a thought.
 
I don't know, bro. Give it a shot and see. My gut feeling says it won't work but I have no real basis for that. It might work great.
 
I have been experimenting much more with it. I think the first stuff I collected was 1) wet. 2) hard, both as IZ suggested (good guesses or did you speak from experience? ;)) This was the spongiest stuff I could find. I have not given it a spark yet, we will see how it goes. I have not chared any yet, but one of those bigger pieces will be chared.

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Yeah. Lots of experience with failed attempts at things. lol.
 
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