What's the fascination with batonning?

jbass

jbass

Joined
Dec 26, 2009
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Let me preface this question by saying that I've owned knives for more than 55 years. (Yes, I'm an old guy.) I've owned everything from small Spyderco's to 24" machetes. It never occurred to me in all those years to hammer any of my knife blades through a log, branch, etc. until I recently started to read knife forums. If I need a make a fire I shave some wood from a branch to make some tinder and then look around for small and medium size branches to use as is or break into pieces. When the fire gets large enough I lay a large branch across the fire and let the fire burn it in two and then burn each half. If I get the urge to chop something, I get out a small hatchet or axe and have at it.

I'm willing to admit that I might be missing something here. I understand that using a large knife to chop some branches might save the weight of carrying a small hatchet. But what is the fascination with batonning a large log or branch? Lots of posts on lots of forums and lots of videos on the net about batonning.

So, here is your chance to educate the old guy. Please enlighten me.
 
It can be useful to get to dry wood inside wet logs or I have seen it used to creat a flat surface for a bow drill or other applications. Other than that...yeah, you're right. You can definitely use your other tools/techniques just fine without batonning.
 
Taking a big old knife to the woods and chopping wood with it and making fire... BAM! Maybe not totally sensible but loads of fun. I'm sure a more serious human being than myself will join in soon with a better excus -er, reasoning :D
 
The one time something like batoning has been essential for me was when i was on an extended kayaking trip in the tongass national forest in Alaska. In case you don't know, it rains all summer long there. when we wanted to start a fire while it was raining we had to find big pieces of driftwood and beat the heck out of 'em until we got to the dry wood in the core. naturally we used a small hatchet for the job. I've batoned while car camping just because it's fun and it's kinda cool to know you have a knife that'll stand up to it. It's really just a cool factor thing i think. A lot of people get a kick out of knowing they have a knife that'll perform far beyond what they really need. and you know, if i was living out in the woods for months at a time i'd want something like that too. I definitely see it all as kind of a fad within the knife community, along with the exaggerated importance of lock strength.
 
jbass said:
Let me preface this question by saying that I've owned knives for more than 55 years. (Yes, I'm an old guy.) I've owned everything from small Spyderco's to 24" machetes. It never occurred to me in all those years to hammer any of my knife blades through a log, branch, etc. until I recently started to read knife forums. If I need a make a fire I shave some wood from a branch to make some tinder and then look around for small and medium size branches to use as is or break into pieces. When the fire gets large enough I lay a large branch across the fire and let the fire burn it in two and then burn each half. If I get the urge to chop something, I get out a small hatchet or axe and have at it.

I'm willing to admit that I might be missing something here. I understand that using a large knife to chop some branches might save the weight of carrying a small hatchet. But what is the fascination with batonning a large log or branch? Lots of posts on lots of forums and lots of videos on the net about batonning.

So, here is your chance to educate the old guy. Please enlighten me.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure a lot of people like the idea of having one or two knives that don't weigh a lot and cover almost all the bases. It is possible that batoning, for most people, is just a way to test the strength and versatility of their knives. However as an above poster said, it does come in handy if you're trying to be as minimalist as possible. The heavy choppers that people make these days, with their thick spines, work almost as well as an axe with much less weight, at the expense of using more effort. I don't think anyone NEEDS to baton anything if they're camping or hiking, though. It's just kinda nice to know your knives are beasts, lol.
 
For me, I don't normally bring an axe or hatchet with me if I have to carry my stuff. In fact, the last overnighter I went on was canoe powered, and I brought a medium sized knife, but no axe or hatchet. One of the other guys brought a folding saw, which we also used. We did not have to split anything to get a great fire on that trip. I don't own a full sized axe, or a small hatchet. I only have hawks.

My main reason, is because I can, and it is fun!


I grew up cutting firewood (my dad was a logger in his younger years, so I grew up cutting down massive trees! then processing them, and heating our home. I did a lot of wood splitting throughout my life). If I have a nice flat splitting stump, and nice flat logs to split, nothing better than an axe. If I have to do that same thing out in the boonies, I prefer to split by batonning, if I have to even do it at all.

Some of my fire prep tents to be where there are big pieces of firewood, but often not a lot of tinder. So I am making the bigger logs smaller with what I have.


Batonning can be safer if done correctly (especially if you have no flat even spot to set your wood. Especially at night, when you are cold).

I have had a few times where it was handy, where I needed to get to the core of the wood, which was still pretty dry. Just this winter, I used it to get to the center wood up in the Cascades, snow camping. The wood was already cut, and ready.........but very damp, and covered in snow.

We had a hatchet, two hawks, and I still used my big knife to baton. The wood was frozen solid, and was very very hard to get through with the hatchet. It was about 9 at night when we got to the site. Trying to bang the hatchet through was not handy. I was able to baton enough dry wood from the cores, to get the fire going. (I also showed the scouts how to make fuzz sticks off the wood from the cores of the fire wood. Something they had not seen before).
 
It's kind of been glamorized by the survivalists, the minimalists, and the bushcrafters. It's a nice trick to know, but I still keep an Estwing Camper's Axe in the trunk of the car.
 
If you have a better tool, use it.

If you don't have a better tool and need to split wood, it's nice to know how to do the job properly.

One does not hammer with a knife when batonning. That would be chopping - pretty stressful on a tool not designed for it. Placing the edge of a decent steel tool in contact with wood and hitting the back edge of the steel tool with a piece of wood need nor be stressful at all.

I was taught the technique at the U.S.M.C. Desert and Mountain Survival School in 1961. Didn't call it "batonning." The M.G.S. called it 'splitting wood with a knife," the knife in question being an issue Mk II.

Never thought of it as entertainment either, but different strokes, so to speak, for different folks.
 
I was always taught that when available try to use the right tool for the right job. If you need to split wood use an axe or saw, however with that being said, sometimes there are extenuating circumstances. Where I grew up, it seemed like everybody carried a knife, I got my first one when I was six but not everybody had an axe or hatchet around. I have always been told that batonning is safer than swinging the knife. If you find yourself in a "survival" situation or perhaps in the military out in the field you may not have access to an axe, but most soldiers that I know carry a knife or you can usually rustle up at least one bayonet, and if your hands are cold or wet it would be safer to baton than to swing the knife in a traditional chopping manner.

Just to clarify because I have seen a few threads discussing "survival" and the like, when I say survival I mean the run of the mill type survival scenario. I am NOT talking about zombies, the end of the world or some other crazy thing. I mean people getting un-found when they are hiking and having to spend the night without intending to be out overnight or something along those lines.

So to conclude, besides just being good clean fun and surprisingly addicting, yes I do it even when I don't have to, it is safer than just swinging a knife which may be doing a job it wasn't necessarily designed for.
 
It's just a technique. It's not a fad. It's been around for ages. The only downside to battoning is that it might break your blade if you strike it in the wrong spot with the wrong angle, so it's not for any knife or your average yahoo.
 
I hear ya, OP...

Batoning looks like fun though; especially when you've got a knife like a BK-2 or ESEE 5...
 
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I don't get it either. When I backpack, I carry a camp saw, and when I am in the car or canoe, a saw, and a hatchet/small axe. I understand that if I am in a "survival" situation, and only have a knife, it may be a good skill to have, however, I don't see the fascination of pounding on small fixed blades or folders for day to day chores.
 
stoffi said:
It's just a technique. It's not a fad. It's been around for ages. The only downside to battoning is that it might break your blade if you strike it in the wrong spot with the wrong angle, so it's not for any knife or your average yahoo.
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It's not batoning itself that i think is a fad, it's the over exaggerated importance that some seem to put on it in this forum. When someone suggests a blade for use camping/hiking/backpacking/bushcraft you'll often hear "but X knife would be better for batoning". While it may in fact be a true statement, I just find it a little odd that that's a characteristic people think is essential to a knife.
 
What's the fascination with batonning?
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My guess would be that a user can accomplish a relatively large amount of work with a small, light, and easily packable tool in a relatively low amount of time and low physical energy expenditure.

Is it a good thing to do? That is a heavily debated topic...
 
Batoning along the grain (splitting) is extremely useful for firemaking and for making things in the field. For instance, splitting a board out of log to use as a hearthboard for bowdrill/hand drill. It is much more controlled than swinging an axe, and therefore safer.

There really isn't a need to split anything bigger than wrist sized wood, which my 4" Enzo Trapper will handle fine. Splitting that into quarters will give you matchstick-like kindling, make enough of it and you can get any other logs burning no matter how wet. When its very wet out I have problems with small sticks as kindling- it seems they are mostly bark, and the bark is soaking wet. It takes a lot of heat energy to evaporate all that water before they will start to burn. That energy has to come from your tinder, which is usually asking too much of it. When you split slightly larger sticks, the bark seems to fall off on its own. The split wood has more surface area (and much more dry surface area), so it burns far better.

I try not to baton anything that looks twisted, crooked, or has giant knots in it. Thats just being too rough on my knife for my liking. If you don't care as much about your knife, you can split wood like this much better than with a hatchet. My 6" Gerber Steadfast saw a lot of this kind of use.

I don't have a use for batonning across the grain. I think that is very hard on the knife edge. Usually I can accomplish the same thing by carving a notch around the circumference and breaking the stick off.
 
IMHO there are very few if any reasons to ever baton firewood over 2 inches thick ( for kindling). Maybe if you need to find a dry core of wood.
I think the real reason to baton firewood is for the pure fun of it. If you have a job to do and it can be done with a knife why not, that is why we love knives. I can cut string, wrapping paper etc with a scissors but it is an excuse to use my knife, so I do.
 
I guess to split a bigger piece of wood with a knife that is too light to chop? I would rather take a big knife and chop.
 
Safety (for those with lesser skills at ax work)
Accuracy (you can easily split a log exactly where you need)
Cold (if it is cold, there may not be enough ground timber to keep the fire going for the length of time needed by extreme temps)
Moisture (sometimes, the best place to find dry wood is on the inside of a larger piece of wood)
 
Thomas Linton said:
I was taught the technique at the U.S.M.C. Desert and Mountain Survival School in 1961. Didn't call it "batonning." The M.G.S. called it 'splitting wood with a knife," the knife in question being an issue Mk II.
Click to expand...

Well that's way less "sexy" sounding. Who wants to "split wood with a knife"? Yawn. :)
 
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