Batoning is nothing...Take a look at this.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...ting-the-BK2-to-the-test-so-you-don-t-have-to
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...ting-the-BK2-to-the-test-so-you-don-t-have-to
Batoning is nothing...Take a look at this.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...ting-the-BK2-to-the-test-so-you-don-t-have-to
I consider batonning in the same category as filtering urine through a pant leg filled with pebbles and sand: it's a skill I should know and which could potentially save my life, but which I hopefully will never have to use, except in very limited circumstances like taking small limbs off a trunk or quickly splitting a stick.
Batoning is not the issue; beating your knife recklessly like an ape and using batoning as an excuse is the problem. The same goes with massive chopping knives when users pound them relentlessly against a tree. These are precision tools and like all good tools they perform best when they are well maintained and treated with respect. A extra mass of steel in a sturdy knife is a poor substitute for brain matter. Take the time to do it right and the knife will deliver a lifetime of performance.
n2s
Don't try the filtering. It won't work. ^___^
Whatever "tons" and "scores" might be, there are videos of Ray Mears batonning hardwood with a MORA. He does not think it's abuse, and apparently MORA does not either. Kochanski, ditto.
Having said that, anything can be broken by someone. I baton when I have to (seldom) and carefully with no casualties thus far. Would I prefer a BK2? Sure.
I don't baton with my knives, for a couple of reasons:
1) I feel is outright needlessly abusive to baton with a knife, especially when the knife wasn't purpose-built for doing it. The scores of "I broke my knife while batoning, what went wrong???" BF Threads / Youtube Videos are a testament to the fact that you're much more likely to break your knife if you choose to baton with it. I do a lot of borderline-abusive things with my knives on occasion, but batoning is kind of where I draw the line. If you want to baton with your knives, go for it, but you have no-one but yourself to blame if they snap / chip / disintegrate.
2) I've been going camping since I was very small, and I've never NEEDED to baton with my knives. I would submit that very very few people have ever NEEDED to baton their knives through logs to split firewood. In nearly any situation where you might want to baton your knife through a log, you could, instead, just do what this guy does:
[youtube]N-WuP-xYlnc[/youtube]
When I was small, that's basically the way I learned to split wood without the use of a hatchet/axe/splitting maul - make a notch, apply a wedge, hammer the wedge through the log to split it. The risk of breaking your knife, hurting yourself, etc. is almost nil, and you don't need a great big sharpened prybar to do it. For most of my life, I only brought a single blade pocket knife for camping purposes alongside a hatchet and small saw, and I could make do without the saw OR the hatchet when it comes to firemaking if I really needed to, using a wedge and a little bit of imagination.
Now, if you do WANT to baton with your knives, that's just fine as far as I'm concerned. Lots of folks have fun with it, and there are plenty of knives on the market now that are specifically built to handle that kind of use (like the venerable Bk2, which is apparently harder to kill than the Terminator robot ). I would suggest that if you want to baton things, you should only do it with knives that are made to withstand that particular task. It's not a fad I subscribe to, though, and it's really not something you NEED to do with your knives at all - just a matter of preference.
It's all a matter of technique.
If you have good technique you'll have no problems, if you don't bad things are likely to happen to your knife.
Exactly!:thumbup:
The pics show a Fällkniven NL4 after opening a place for the wooden wedge to be batoned through the wood.
The second is a Mora drawknife with the second handle cut off.
Here the Mora was batoned through a massive piece of Maple firewood.
Observe the knot.
View attachment 328147View attachment 328148
Regards
Mikael
You have a nice patina on that NL4's handle. Did you treat it, or is that natural?...I've heard they patina over time. I've been saving for a NL3....almost there.
Batoning is not the issue; beating your knife recklessly like an ape and using batoning as an excuse is the problem. The same goes with massive chopping knives when users pound them relentlessly against a tree. These are precision tools and like all good tools they perform best when they are well maintained and treated with respect. A extra mass of steel in a sturdy knife is a poor substitute for brain matter. Take the time to do it right and the knife will deliver a lifetime of performance.
n2s
It comes out sterile to begin with. The dirt may not help that very much. Just plug your nostrils.I consider batonning in the same category as filtering urine through a pant leg filled with pebbles and sand: