Jim, when i used to live in Carolina, the good yellow pine was called heart pine, fat wood, rosin wood, "lighter" as in fire lighter,and a few other names. that was the pine that you could carve almost like a bar of soap, it was full of sap. over time the sap would get very hard, also that pine had a very tight grain. today most of those trees are gone, today if it's 20 years old, it gets turned into lumber. people still dig up the old yellow pine stumps when they can find them, and cut them into little bundles of fat wood..........sorry to hear about that house burning down.................the Ft.Benning Sled is a question for others,cause i don't know.