Batoners Anonymous (breaking the habit)

I hope you're able to stop yourself from batonning if you're opposed to it.

Otherwise, batonning wood is a skill i use frequently and find invaluable for field-craft/survival. If my field-knife cannot handle this implementation, 1) it will soon be broken 2) if not broken, then sold on.
 
Suspectdevice said:
Here is how I broke my battoning habit...

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If only I had sought out help for my battoning problem sooner!
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Looks like an area of really dense grain structure or a knot right under the blade, but usually a knife will take a lick or two even after it's stopped moving and you'll know it's time to move the blade or leave that piece alone. That would have been enough for me to stop a habit of batonning large pieces of really dense, really seasoned hardwood, and maybe my habit of buying Spyderco fixed blades (if I had that habit, the Temperance 2 is/was about to be my first), or perhaps buying or batonning knives made of whatever steel that is, but not enough to break my habit of batonning all together. I always start out with lighter taps and don't start really hitting it until I see the piece will split.
 
Somtimes batoning can be a necessity getting to dry wood if all is soaked from rain. Most of the time it's testing knives and having fun.

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Batoning frozen, seasoned oak with an 8" Tusker.
Scott
 
batonning wood is a skill i use frequently and find invaluable for field-craft/survival.
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YES! Why are people so opposed to it?? I would rather baton then swing an axe when it's dark and I am tired. Less chance of sinking the axe into my shin/foot etc. It's a skill that can be used when needed.
 
I've tried to find love for axes, but they just don't speak to me like knives do. In much of my kind of multi-day, backcountry camping, wood prep is important enough that you need more than a 4" knife. I really like a take down buck saw in combination with a lite machete. The saw fells trees and bucks woods, the machete clears grounds, digs holes and splits wood (batoning). The bushy knife whittles and carves and does small knife chores. Hey, if its just a day hike or overnighter then the bushy and SAK are good enough. However, restricting yourself to wrist sized pieces of wood isn't going to keep you warm for the night during winter camping or in heavy/cold rains. You need the big 8"-10" rounds for that. Anyhow, I will baton whatever tool I have with me to get the job done. I have played with wood wedges as splitting aids. Its a great technique to know, but not something I would seriously consider doing when my main purpose is getting a fire. Takes to long to do. I'll just baton, and if my knife is too small, then I'll split off from the sides.
 
Ken, you have a way with words. I share many of your thoughts here. I like hatchets and axes, but not nearly as much as knives.

Life is short, enjoy what you can;)
 
I believe in batoning...within reason. It is too much work to baton heavy logs and I won't do it with a knife. (included is my knife I usually use in 3/16" cobalt stainless). It serves no purpose to baton really thick material unless you are desperate, and I am not. I am lazy and that suits me fine to be choosey about how much work I do. It also is practical in the survival sense as you do only what is absolutely needed. There is a skill to learn and I learned it long before Nut came out and mentioned it. I do not swing my blades around but precisely hit them with a stick where it needs to be hit.


My Bushcraft....3.75" asymetrical ground blade with differentially ground tip, 10.5 overall length.



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IMO if you dont baton your knife you are handicapping yourself. I beat the snot out of my blade. The splitwood fire is the best way to test a knife and is a skill every woodsman should be very very familiar with.
 
I baton with my Spyderco Endura. However, it's always no knots, and with the grain, so the wood almost splits before the knife. And I also used a light stick to hit too, preferring to hit faster rather than with a heavy log. Not sure if it helps. And I read that it's important to make sure the handle's higher than the tip, to reduce the pressure on the blade.
 
sutured said:
I'm not apposed to batoning, but in the thousands of days and nights I've spent living outdoors all around the world I've never needed to baton anything to get a fire started or keep it going. When I need dry shaving to start a fire I whittle down to them rather than use my knife to split wood. I think I can whittle a pile of course and fine shavings quicker than I can baton kindling. Once that bit of tinder is obtained, it's pretty hard for me to imagine needing to continue to split wood to maintain a fire.

Most the batoining demonstrations you see are with pieces of sawn stove wood, which begs the question why split wood with a knife when you apparently have access to a chainsaw?

If you're out in the field and want to baton something, then either you have a saw with you or you're batoning pieces of wood small enough to break by hand. Either way I think it's generally wasted effort to keep splitting firewood verses just collecting choicer pieces of wood and constructing your fire to pre-heat wet pieces.

If using your knife to split wood is the way you like to build fires then by all means go for it, but it is not necessary. I guess it's possible I've just been lucky and never run into that situation where it was baton or freeze, but I doubt it. I've always managed to get the fire lit without pounding on the spine of my knife.
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I truly doubt that it is practical to whittle little shavings off frozen rock hard dead wood at -40. Simply holding the wood sucks away body heat even through gloves. Can you start with grass or small dead twigs?, maybe, depending on location. I find that exposing the dry inner surface area gets my fire started quicker, and sometimes that is the number one concern with semi frozen fingers. It is easier for me to baton with gloves than to shave, particularly in extreme cold were every minute counts. I understand and respect your view, but I know from personal experience that there are scenarios were I will baton because the weather is serious and I just don't have the time option.
 
Well...
About the last thing I'm going to do is tell someone who's at risk of freezing to death not to do what works for them. Again, I'm not inherently apposed to batoning. It's just not the only way to skin a cat, and a generation of people educated via You Tube don't seem to understand that. If it works for you under condition X, I have no intention of trying to make you change your ways. The originator of the thread wanted to quit batoning, and my point is he never needed to start.

I've predominately carried smaller, thinner blades which I prefer for most chores. They do not lend themselves to batoning, so it's a habit I never acquired. I also grew up using an axe and started "chopping" wood when I was seven years old. I agree in principle that batoning can be safer than chopping, and for many people it's probably much safer. But if you know axes then using one safely is second nature. And last time I checked, you can strike the back of an axe with a baton too...

I'm not sure I see much difference in the thermal loss of whittling verses holding a knife and baton, but maybe there is some. Any moisture or pitch in the wood will make it much harder to carve in extreme cold, of course.

And -40 is EXTREME cold. Cold enough I'd be worried about any steel tool fracturing if it is stressed. I've spend very little time in those conditions, but a fair amount of time in the zero-degree-fahrenheit to minus-fifteen-degree range, and I DO NOT go into those conditions with only a knife and a match to start a fire. When it's that cold I'm packing a saw and a axe and a supply of tinder that will put out some real BTU's.

If I don't have my axe and saw and tinder, then I certainly didn't intend to be out in that sort of cold! The argument of "if you only have a knife" is about as valid as the argument "so you don't have your hat or mittens or boots". What are you doing there if you're not prepared? Loosing fingers and toes, most likely.

Once again: if batoning wood is your MO for fire making, baton away. But if you don't want to baton, or if you want to learn to build a fire without batoning, it hardly requires a miracle. It just requires a little different technique.
 
sutured said:
If I don't have my axe and saw and tinder, then I certainly didn't intend to be out in that sort of cold! The argument of "if you only have a knife" is about as valid as the argument "so you don't have your hat or mittens or boots". What are you doing there if you're not prepared? Loosing fingers and toes, most likely.
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You make valid sensible points. But unfortunately I am human and don't always do the same in every scenario. I have been out hunting and pushed it a bit more than common sense would tell both of us to do. That magic first and last hour of daylight can be obsessive. I have put myself in less than optimum conditions in that scenario. No real intention of making a fire because I'd be back in the vehicle, but I pooched myself a bit. There are many possible scenarios that can happen through (yes) poor choice and prep or an accident. I try to be aware of weather conditions, think ahead about supples etc., but I have still been caught a few times. I'm not perfect and sometimes s""t happens.
 
I baton stuff

I dont buy knives because the knife can be used to baton , but I do try to learn how to get the most out of the gear I do have .

Batoning on a wood pile for fun while talking about survival stuff for sakes of a youtube video is one thing , finding a neatly cut wood pile in a survival situation to baton on tho in reality , is quite another ... there are relatively few neatly chainsawed logs that you can just go pick up when things are looking like edging toward ugly .

My experience anyway .
 
While batoning might not always be necessary. I expect all my knives to take that kind of use. I talked to a local maker and he did not feel batoning was abuse and neither do I.
 
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