Is this 'batoning' and firewood chopping with a knife a passing trend?

Ok, so is this another thread where someone is trying to dictate what others should do with their knives?
 
Phoynix said:
Battling a knife though wood greatly reduces its time till failure..

Not really a problem in todays world where you use the knife once every few months on a camping trip, and if it lasts 20 years... you think what a great knife.
The fact it actually only saw a few months of real use doesnt really CLICK with people.

IT becomes a problem for people who use a knife EVERY day all day.
Wrecking knives are a great example of hard use knife that includes batoning and how they have to be constantly replaced due to wear and failure.

Its nice to know a knife can do something... but really you shouldnt baton a survival knife unless in a situation where life depends upon it, so that it wont fail at this exact point where its most needed.

Knives are like people, treat them right, and they will stick with you all your days.

PS-larger tools like Machetes that are designed for high stress impacts... are softer then most knives for a reason.
Toughness and hardness have a inverse relationship.
If it didnt we would still be using Volcanic Glass blades... which are hundreds to a thousand times sharper then steel blades.
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what you say is pretty reasonable if youre talking about the more brittle stainless steel knives or folders used to baton on locked open .
If youre talking about even a half decent hicarbon steel fixed blade tho ... I feel youre off target somewhat .

Throw in differential heat treat , soft spine , harder cutting edge and there is simply no problem with beating on that blade . If the owner wishes to , that is .
 
I have batoned wood but I don't need to very often. I believe that an ax does certain things excellently. A large knife does many things very well. That said, my favorite large knife is a heavy 20 inch machete. And you don't really baton anything with that.
 
This, IMO, is the way I would baton with a knife if the S really HTF. Minimizes the risk to my only survival tool. Use the knife to make tools, so it lives to cut another day.
[video=youtube;N-WuP-xYlnc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-WuP-xYlnc[/video]
 
dogstar said:
This, IMO, is the way I would baton with a knife if the S really HTF. Minimizes the risk to my only survival tool. Use the knife to make tools, so it lives to cut another day.
[video=youtube;N-WuP-xYlnc]http://www.youtubeReply Reply With Quote .com/watch?v=N-WuP-xYlnc[/video]
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I saw this video in a previous thread and was really excited and intrigued, so I went out and tested it the next week. Its a swell idea in theory, but when you get a piece that has a few knots in it, it becomes very difficult to get through.
 
jackknife said:
[Is this 'batoning' and firewood chopping with a knife a passing trend?]

I can only hope so.
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batoning is an ancient traditional technique. I am not for chopping trees with a knife as it is a waste of effort on anything bigger than a few inches diameter. People get down on traditional skills just because they are ignorant of them. If your woodworking fixed blade breaks while splitting some kindling, it was a crappy knife.
 
It's been a technique used for a long time. It is a newer trend in testing the tuffness of a knife and talked about more so I would imagine that a lot more people have been exposed to it and now do it or have tried it.
 
olybears57 said:
I saw this video in a previous thread and was really excited and intrigued, so I went out and tested it the next week. Its a swell idea in theory, but when you get a piece that has a few knots in it, it becomes very difficult to get through.
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A knotty piece of wood is hard to split no matter what you use. Discretion is the better part of valor. All the more reason to pass instead of breaking your knife. Also, you can make/use more than one wedge.
 
I suppose you can baton a katana or grosse messer through this log:
14splittoend.jpg


Not my image or wisdom: www.oldjimbo.com to learn more.
 
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On an old historical family ranch here in Texas one of my relatives found a length of flat steel, maybe a wagon spring, that had been heated and folded back on itself around a wooden handle to make a crude ax. On the back it was flattened where it had been used no doubt as a log splitting wedge or to 'baton' firewood, split fence rails or square up building logs. 'Batoning' may have been around since the bronze age but I also doubt very seriously anyone used a valuable self defense weapon and tool such as the Bowie knife to split wood, anymore than they would use a rifle barrel as a pry bar.
 
When I used wood to provide a majority of my heat in a fireplace I bought wood by the truckload and used my machax and a suitable baton to split all the wood for kindling, that was over 25 years ago.
 
Well, batoning and firewood chopping and other camp chores with a large knife may not be absolutely necessary -but, for most people, so is taking time out of the year to go camping or hiking. It is all for fun and sport, right? To enjoy the outdoors and get a grin? Some people find enjoyment in novel uses for a large knife, myself included. The most efficient way to cook a rack of ribs is probably to just boil it for 45 minutes but I would never do that. I put a dry rub on those suckers and smoke 'em for a few hours! A waste of time and energy? Perhaps but I don't think so. I like it.

If we did only what is absolutely necessary to continue breathing each day, we probably wouldn't have many stories to tell in life.

So, to answer the OP's question: sure, it could be a passing trend. But do whatever makes you happy... EVEN if that means using an axe instead of a sweet knife :p
 
When I get my Trail Master clone I'm sure I'll do some chopping, maybe some 2-3" mesquite limbs for my barbecue smoker, to find out how it handles and realize it's power as a potential defense weapon and thats going to be fun. But there ain't going to be no You-tube of me seeing if I can split a fence post and demolishing a cinder block without it breaking.

If this 'batoning' doesn't die down soon I'm going to try and get a law passed against it. I keed, I keed.
 
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Blackie Scantling said:
When I get my Trail Master clone I'm sure I'll do some chopping, maybe some 2-3" mesquite limbs for my barbecue smoker, to find out how it handles and realize it's power as a potential defense weapon and thats going to be fun. But there ain't going to be no You-tube of me seeing if I can split a fence post and demolishing a cinder block without it breaking.

If this 'batoning' doesn't die down soon I'm going to try and get a law passed against it. I keed, I keed.
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Well, it's been around longer than any of us have been alive, so good luck to ya. :p
 
Batonning is not a passing fad and never will be a fad, in and of itself. It has probably been around since the first knife was made. The only "fad" part of batonning is idiots online trying to show how stupid they can be with a knife.

Long before I ever batonned any wood, and never thought I would do any wood batonning, I was batonning and didn't realize it.... with kitchen knives no less. But we didn't call it batonning. We called it "splitting".

I cut thick carrots, potatoes, beets, rutabagas, watermelons, cantalopes, cucumbers by splitting them, with a "batonning like motion", either by embedding the knife in the vegetable and smacking down on a cutting board like I was using a hatchet or whacking the spine of the knife with the heel of my hand when necessary. I learned that watching my mother, grandmother and great grandmother in their kitchens. I'd bet that they learned it from watching their mothers all the way back to who knows when.

Before they had band-saws or even bone saws, butchers would chop through bones using "cleavers", which are nothing more than thick-spined, wide-bladed specialty knives/axes using large wooden "hammers". I watched my grandfather do it many times in his butchering plant working on cattle, hogs, sheep, goats and deer before he got a "new-fangled" band-saw. I think he finally "up-graded" sometime around 1960.

As far as "survival" goes, let's say you are "out there" somewhere and do have "the proper tool for the job", an ax or hatchet, and either the handle or poll breaks? What if you have a saw and it breaks somehow? If you don't know how to baton, you are up the proverbiable stinky creek w/o a paddle. Don't think it can or will happen to you? Think again. It can and will. You may not be carrying a knife designed to baton, but you still have the ax head, and can baton with that.

Most batonning in a "survival" situation are NOT going to be making firewood. There are enough sticks and small limbs laying around to make a fire. The batonning is going to come in handy making other items for your use.

Do I advocate batonning or chopping with folding knives or light weight hunting/fishing knives?

No. I think it's abuse and would only do it if that was my only hope for survival.

Do I think it is abuse to baton wood with SPECIALTY KNIVES DESIGNED FOR CHOPPING AND BATONNING?

No, it is NOT abuse. It is the use of a product as it was designed to be used.
 
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As an amateur historian, the ultimate "survivalists" were the pioneers that hiked into the wilderness during America's westward expansion. Armed only with an ax, a muzzle loader, a knife and if they were a family people maybe a copy of the Old Testament, they were heading out on an endless survival campout. Add to that their only visitors would most likely Indians that frowned upon such things. Do you think they used what would be their survival knife, be it a Bowie or most likely a butcher knife, for splitting firewood or even spent their equally precious energy to chop a tree with it?

I can see a guy in a vid in his backyard chopping on a sapling or in a campground next to his old Honda Accord preforming some Bushcraft skills, whatever that is, but the thought of a settler a hundred and fifty years hundreds ago hundreds of miles from the nearest friendly human in a real survival situation standing in an Aspen grove hacking on a poplar tree with a knife would be a curiosity to even the Indians that were about to scalp him. In fact, they might have avoided him entirely for being touched in the head.

I seriously don't have a problem with 'batoning' or wood processing with a knife other than every video of large knives seem to end with some guy kneeling over a dead tree trunk huffing as he feverishly hacks on it and I wonder whats the plan when he finally chops through it?

Having said all that, a good counter argument would be what else would you do with a big blade if you can't chop wood with it? Since it's no longer legal to carry one or socially acceptable to duel or fight with them which is why they originated in the deep antebellum South, and other cutting tasks are better handled by smaller knives whats the purpose of a Bowie? So I say gentlemen, hack on and long live the Bowie.
 
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Blackie Scantling said:
The energy it takes to carry a 2lb. double bit ax and use it to supply all the wood you need is a lot less than the that used to hack and whittle to produce one piece of fire wood. If you're in a survival situation and you have to cut the hearts out of dead wood thats wet, again, the ax. To sit there and burn much needed calories and valuable energy not to mention getting blisters to chop lengths of firewood that will be burned as fast as you can hack through it or pound a important piece of equipment through a piece of wood hoping it won't break to me is bizarre.
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IMO, if you need so much wood that a 2 pound axe is the right choice then you're either in a very unforgiving environment, like Alaska in the middle of winter, or you're doing something wrong. Of course this also doesn't get into the idea of being able to survive without a fire. I'd say if a fire is the only thing between you and death then you've made some poor choices.

Like other posters have said a reasonable knife is about 10-12 ounces with sheath which is why it's carried on person. You can't carry an axe on person and if you did everyone will look at you with puzzelment as they wonder why you didn't think to carry 2 pounds of useful gear like a tarp, spare jacket etc. And like Myal said, baton a wrist thick branch to get dry kindling to get the fire going. After it's going there's no more need for cutting. Just put whole logs on. Honestly I think a lot of chopping that gets done at camp is out of boredom than any real need for the work to be done.

And you should clue your "experts" into what a froe is. People have been using this method to make cedar shingles for a LONG time. ;)
 
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