Only one knife for batoning wood?

[Maniacal Pete]

My personal favorite knife for batonning firewood is a BRKT Bravo II.
Excellent shape, weight, length, thickness, edge, comfort, sheath, strength and steel.
I use it in concert with a silky saw, so I don't have to carry a large chopper (and chop).
I think it would serve as a good "one knife,"
but I like knives so I always carry a smaller bushcrafter type knife,
as well as my folder... well...last time out I had seven knives on me...

[DOC-CANADA]

Hey upnorth,

Which is the better chopper, the Brute or the Hudson Bay?

Doc

[kurodrago]

I'd say this is false, in some cases at least... I've tried to split wood with my Trail Hawk, given up after repeated failures, and finished the job with my Esee-5.

With a full tang knife, you can do one thing that is almost impossible with an axe/hatchet - twist the blade to pry the wood further apart before hammering it in further. With smaller wood, I've found this makes it take a lot less whacking my blade to split the wood.

That is very trivial, and depend of your perception more than anything else.
CS Pipe Hawk it will outperform the Trail Hawk period...I own both.
CS Pipe hawk it will outchop Esee-5 & BK-2, very easy.
For split wood it's even more trivial.....

[upnorth]

Hey upnorth,

Which is the better chopper, the Brute or the Hudson Bay?

Doc

Brute, after I thinned the edge out, which was real work on a Lansky set up. The brute has real chopping heft but is a boat anchor to hip carry, with a canteen opposite on the same pistol belt. I used to hack down 6-8 inch diameter pines up north fairly easily. The H.B. doesn't have the same mass to bite as deeply. The H. B. is more of a pleasure to carry though and is a battoning monster.

[HardTripper]

Clearly the hawk is out splitting the knife , but those are ideal conditions. Take a log that isn't perfectly flat, and put yourself on the ground instead of a perfect chopping block and battoning the knife becomes a better method. Maybe a bigger thicker knife would have been more suitable.

[Foilist]

During the past summer I used a Condor Hudson Bay as my wood processor. It handled batonning and other fire prep tasks with aplomb. It is a very robust knife, and is both cheap and ugly enough that I do not feel bad about playing rough with it.

[oatmeal]

If I was TOLD to bring only one knife for fire making i think i would bring a good leuku. Out of all "big" knives, I think the the leuku is best at "small knife work". And It is VERY light and strong, but still quite capable. still 8 or 9 icnh blade.

[upnorth]

Brute, after I thinned the edge out, which was real work on a Lansky set up. The brute has real chopping heft but is a boat anchor to hip carry, with a canteen opposite on the same pistol belt. I used to hack down 6-8 inch diameter pines up north fairly easily. The H.B. doesn't have the same mass to bite as deeply. The H. B. is more of a pleasure to carry though and is a battoning monster.

Actually I have to revise this. 4-6 inch is more realistic (non frozen live tree). Its easy for the minds eye to tell fish stories. I do remember rolling the edge while trying to hack down a larger live pine, frozen rock hard at an extreme temp. The Indians in the north didn't fart around with axes, but had them as a back up on their snowmobiles. It was straight chain saw for them. The axe was also used to check ice thickness early and late in the year. They would go to different communities by snowmobile just out from the lake shore, as there were no trees or rocks to contend with. To be honest I would rather have an axe or saw to cut up hard dead wood, even in the best of weather. Many of you know that this is more efficient but I had to learn the slow hard way. By my own trial and error.

[DOC-CANADA]

Thanks for the reply, upnorth. An axe is out of the question for me - herniated disc, but a big knife (read BK-4, BK-9) works just fine.

Doc

[trailbum]

I really like my BK9.