Playing with a BK11

[Todd A]

First I don't normally baton. I do consider it to be borderline abuse.Just my opinion,so don't jump on me. If the knife had failed I would have ordered a new one and not bothered to try out the KaBar warranty.

That said.... I took out my BK11 last week to see just how hard I could use it.

It has been my EDC since I got it,and it will be one knife that will comes with me for outdoor fun once the weather warms up.

This day was 22F after a week of ~10F temps.

A dry warm piece from my basement woodpile for a warm-up

Worked very well so I tried a cold wet piece from outside..

Then on to some pre-winter cut down saplings from my brushpile for some cross-grain batoning.(still green, moist, and very cold inside)

No edge rolling or chipping. And no major blade failure.(I was worried abit half-way through the 1" sapling,took some heavy pounding to make it through )
I did wear off a tiny amount of coating near the edge.

Not a use I would put it to on a daily basis. But its nice to know it will handle it if I needed it to.

 

[Ethan Becker]

Hey Todd...

Thanks for the nice pics and the commentary...Have no fear when batonning (I prefer the term clubbing, but....) with a BECKER blade.... As long as the club is wood, or a rubber mallet you should have no probs......If I am going to spend a couple of hours batonning fatwood splits I use a urethane sculptors mallet for the sake of my wrists and not for the knife's sake....I use a BK11 to baton small stuff every morning during the fire building season (after a fuzz stick or two) and there have been no probs after years of using the Camillus version for this purpose and the Ka-Bar made blade is sturdier and has a more forgiving heat treat !!!....Using a club and a NECKER to
cut notches and cut to length saplings and branches is one of the things I designed the piece to do.....Using a steel club ie, a hammer, rebar, etc. will eventually (or immediately) screw it up.....I tend to think of the NECKER as much as a chisel with the sharp part on the side as I do a knife these days....I am always amazed at how much I can accomplish with the little guy....Have fun and please report back often....

BTW using the building of the daily fire to keep the old knife skills sharp I owe to Jim Knowka...When he mentioned to me some years ago that he used his daily routine to build a one match fire every morning, I first thought he had WAAAAY too much time on his hands....I have found it to be a great little, now one minute, exercise in fire building, billet reading and knife skills....Thanks again Jim.........

All Best...

ethan

 

[theedge13]

I batoned mine through a 2x4 one day to make some shims. Worked flawlessly. It now has some character marks on it

 

[thombrogan]

Great pics, Todd A!

 

[Jake Bauer]

sweet!

 

[marantz]

Todd A -- Thanks for the pix.

Ethan -- Out of curiosity, the BK11 you use daily for fire building, is it paracord wrapped, or naked? Any pix you would like to contribute?

 

[Masteroffajitas]

Cool pics, the batoning looks very clean....my hands aren't as steady and I tend to mess up.

 

[mechtec]

The more I read about the BK 11 the more impressed I am, within the next two weeks I'm probably going to own my first Becker.

 

[Golbat]

I had the old Camillus type, which is workes pretty well in the field - now I want the new one, too.