- Joined
- Oct 3, 2000
- Messages
- 524
I'll admit I'm just a 'city slicker', but I wanted to try batoning a piece of firewood. Here's the story:
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area (San Jose), it's been a bit chilly and rainy, so the wife wanted a fire in the fireplace. So, yesterday, I went to the local plant nursery and picked up ~1/8 cord of seasoned oak firewood. It had mostly been split, but some of the pieces were rather large.
While unloading the SUV, there was one piece of wood that was mostly split, but still had ~3"-4" connected at one end.
I thought this would be a great opportunity to try using the batoning method to completely split that piece of firewood!
Only question: Of the 'garage and yard' knives I have, which one would I not mind thrashing a bit and really giving a workout (and not mind if something broke or bent). I selected my cheapie Cold Steel GI Tanto.
Please keep in mind that this story is NOT a 'plug' for Cold Steel. This is simply picking a knife that is a seriously cheapie knife, is mostly a sharpened bar of steel, and a knife that I didn't really care if it was destroyed in the process.
Here are the pics of the GI Tanto and splitting the wood (attempts):
Starting to work up a sweat at this point! Seasoned oak firewood is VERY hard!!!
Finally starting to make some good progress!
Almost there...
Success!
Keep in mind that I was batoning the knife not only near the hilt, but really pounding on the knife tip (~1"-2" on the tip of the knife) while holding the handle down with my foot. Yes, I was really whacking the cr*p out of that knife trying to split that wood. It was a cold day but I was pouring sweat! Really hard work with that really hard oak!
The logs I was using as a baton:
Most of the wood chips you see in the pics were from the baton logs partially hitting the sharpened top edge of the GI Tanto.
Another log only partially split:
That one only took about 4 whacks and it was split.
Okay, I must admit that with that first log, I did help out the GI Tanto a little bit with a few whacks from my trusty Estwing hatchet. (Needs sharpening though...)
Lessons learned:
1) It's hard work batoning very hard, seasoned oak firewood with a knife!
2) Not sure if I was really using the proper technique to get that GI Tanto through the wood. It worked, but today, I can feel a few little protests from muscles I never knew I had...
3) My neighbors probably think I'm a nut-job for whacking away at wood in my driveway with a knife and a small log, stopping periodically to take pics, and sweating while doing it.
4) Any suggestions/recommendations for a better way to split that wood using the same tools I had on-hand?
How did the GI Tanto perform?
1) It withstood the abuse quite well. The coating wore off the sharpened top edge a bit, but stayed on the primary edge and sides of the blade well.
2) This one is my fault: one time when flipping over the log and whacking the hilt/handle, the tip of the blade was hit partially sideways into the driveway concrete. Slightly bent the tip (~1/16") - need to pound that back into shape.
3) The knife is not very sharp (understandable) and I didn't really want to sharpen it, so after wiping it off, I sprayed it with WD-40 and let it sit.
4) I expected the knife to bend, the coating to wear off, and look very much worse for the wear. But, not too bad for a $20-$25 knife of simple carbon steel.
Next time, I think I'll get a wedge splitter and a sledgehammer (or a POWER splitter) to split the seasoned oak...
Hope you enjoyed the story...
Regards,
Mike
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area (San Jose), it's been a bit chilly and rainy, so the wife wanted a fire in the fireplace. So, yesterday, I went to the local plant nursery and picked up ~1/8 cord of seasoned oak firewood. It had mostly been split, but some of the pieces were rather large.
While unloading the SUV, there was one piece of wood that was mostly split, but still had ~3"-4" connected at one end.
I thought this would be a great opportunity to try using the batoning method to completely split that piece of firewood!
Only question: Of the 'garage and yard' knives I have, which one would I not mind thrashing a bit and really giving a workout (and not mind if something broke or bent). I selected my cheapie Cold Steel GI Tanto.
Please keep in mind that this story is NOT a 'plug' for Cold Steel. This is simply picking a knife that is a seriously cheapie knife, is mostly a sharpened bar of steel, and a knife that I didn't really care if it was destroyed in the process.
Here are the pics of the GI Tanto and splitting the wood (attempts):
Starting to work up a sweat at this point! Seasoned oak firewood is VERY hard!!!
Finally starting to make some good progress!
Almost there...
Success!
Keep in mind that I was batoning the knife not only near the hilt, but really pounding on the knife tip (~1"-2" on the tip of the knife) while holding the handle down with my foot. Yes, I was really whacking the cr*p out of that knife trying to split that wood. It was a cold day but I was pouring sweat! Really hard work with that really hard oak!
The logs I was using as a baton:
Most of the wood chips you see in the pics were from the baton logs partially hitting the sharpened top edge of the GI Tanto.
Another log only partially split:
That one only took about 4 whacks and it was split.
Okay, I must admit that with that first log, I did help out the GI Tanto a little bit with a few whacks from my trusty Estwing hatchet. (Needs sharpening though...)
Lessons learned:
1) It's hard work batoning very hard, seasoned oak firewood with a knife!
2) Not sure if I was really using the proper technique to get that GI Tanto through the wood. It worked, but today, I can feel a few little protests from muscles I never knew I had...
3) My neighbors probably think I'm a nut-job for whacking away at wood in my driveway with a knife and a small log, stopping periodically to take pics, and sweating while doing it.
4) Any suggestions/recommendations for a better way to split that wood using the same tools I had on-hand?
How did the GI Tanto perform?
1) It withstood the abuse quite well. The coating wore off the sharpened top edge a bit, but stayed on the primary edge and sides of the blade well.
2) This one is my fault: one time when flipping over the log and whacking the hilt/handle, the tip of the blade was hit partially sideways into the driveway concrete. Slightly bent the tip (~1/16") - need to pound that back into shape.
3) The knife is not very sharp (understandable) and I didn't really want to sharpen it, so after wiping it off, I sprayed it with WD-40 and let it sit.
4) I expected the knife to bend, the coating to wear off, and look very much worse for the wear. But, not too bad for a $20-$25 knife of simple carbon steel.
Next time, I think I'll get a wedge splitter and a sledgehammer (or a POWER splitter) to split the seasoned oak...
Hope you enjoyed the story...
Regards,
Mike
