Batoning is not such a great idea, right?

I have started many hundreds if not thousands of fires during my time on this earth, and I have never needed to baton wood. My family has used only a fireplace to keep the house warm my entire life and being that I was born on the 4th of July I am quite the firebug. I light many camp fires and fires in my fire pit outside, usually a couple times a week. I just don't see the need to baton wood. I don't even need to split wood as I normally just find deadfall and lay it across the fire until it burns up and then move the next section into the fire. The only exception is the wood I burn in the fireplace just because it can only be so long. And I use a chainsaw and gas wood splitter to supply all my fire wood that needs to be split. I have whittled a stick to make dry tender to start a fire, but never felt the need to pound a knife through a log. I, also, had never heard of batoning before this website and feel it is just a way to 'play' with your knife. I'm sure that won't go over well with a lot of people but do what works for you. I can start a fire just fine without having to baton wood and I will probably continue not to do so even though I am a knife knut.
 
I have used knives to baton since the late 70's, it's usually not really a big deal as long as you are safe and don't try to take a bigger log than the knife can handle.

They are safer to use than say an AXE or hatchet in the field IMO.
 
The rules I follow:

Decide what tool to use depending on the wood and application of that wood.

We have some serious HARD wood (actually called iron wood/ 'ysterhoud' that actually sinks in water), on the farm we use a diamond tip bench saw using considerable pressure to cut into smaller pieces to fit in the fireplace. Takes less then a minute with the diamond tips usually. If we do it by hand it has taken us up to 30 minutes to cut it into manageable pieces. An axe, depending on the design and who is swinging it 10-20 minutes. Now there is no way I will ever use ANY folder to try and baton through that!

The only times I have used a folder or fixed blade, even a nice thick one to baton is to make kindling. KINDLING and fire preparation.....now that is something that is important. If you get enough finer sticks and grass that you pick up as you walk, from 5mm (a lot of those) then slightly larger and larger and larger, you can burn a log without need to baton through it. If you think you have enough kindling.....get three times more!

On my original statement: Decide what tool to use depending on the wood....well...I wont use a fixed blade or folder on 3/4 of the wood here, because they are hard as can be...and would not risk my knife that I can make kindling with to get a fire nice and high, generate a good bed coals, and pile larger logs onto that.

That is also how I was trained in scouts. You start small and work your way up. Lots of posts going on about emergency situations, but heck. Dont risk the tool you have in order to look cool, do what can safe your life by using common sense and thinking. There are more then one right way to do anything.

Why do people die in the woods Bob? Because they did not do the one thing that could safe their life, thinking. (out of the movie The Edge)

So to answer
How often do you really get around to batoning wood in the wild?

No.

.... do you guys plan on batoning through wood?

Not with a knife, only cut pieces to make nice fuzzy sticks to start the fire.
I will use an axe to split wood.

Do you bring your own baton, or do you figure you'll pick one up as you go?

No need, either an axe, machete to chop dead pieces off the tree and then make fuzzy sticks to get a lot of kindling.

BTW. Here = African Savannahs and semi arid Savannahs.

It might differ from people that live in wood type environments.

I am pro axe for what I have seen in Australias wood chopping competitions when my grandfather showed me what they could do. Here is a google search for videos (http://www.google.co.za/search?hl=e...ion&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=g1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=). The axe is a great tool designed to split timber. I use it for it others might not. I have seen some great axes in Damascus that can shave, even met people that are so strict about an axe that they will flip if the head of an axe is stuck into the ground and so damaging the edge. An axe used in a propper manner (just like a knife) can be the safest tool in any environment I believe. If a fool uses the tool like a fool anyone can get hurt.

Those are my thoughts.
 
I've been a camper and outdoorsman for 15+ years. My father's been the same for longer than I've been alive. Neither of us have ever had to baton wood in our entire lives. A camping saw (of the extendable Gerber kind or even the wire type) will cut wood safer, faster, and with FAR less calorie expenditure. You also don't run the risk of ruining your knife by hitting a hidden knot, bore hole etc.
 
I guess it depends on the tools and the situation. All the videos I've seen show the ability, but there never seems to be the need. Well, they are reviews mostly, so you're out there with a friend, a camera, lots of equipment, and not lost or in a survival situation. But they also always seem dry, with dry enough wood, and it does seem a little weird to beat a larger piece of wood into smaller pieces by using... a smaller piece of wood. Seems like if you can find a baton, you can find more, and burn those.

That said, a big knife should be able to baton with no worries, imo. I don't see any use in the size/weight if it can't. In that case, carry a smaller knife, a hatchet, or whatever, and find suitable sizes of wood or use other techniques to split them.
 
I'd never heard of batoning with a knife until I started reading about it here. My dad & I used to go backpacking a lot, in the mountains of New Mexico and Colorado, when I was a kid/teenager (I'm 49 now), and the ONLY knives we had on us were my dad's SAK and I carried a scout-type folder. We never used our knives for anything other than prepping meals, or whittling a sharp point on a 'hiking staff' or a stick for roasting marshmallows at the campfire (which, by the way, was never an issue getting started, wet or dry). We just started our fire with light twigs & and a little bit of paper (tuck some newsprint in the backpack, in a zip-loc bag to keep it dry). The small twigs & branches are easy to split lengthwise by hand, no need for batoning there. Once that's going, start putting gradually thicker pieces of wood on the fire, a little bit at a time. If done gradually, the larger pieces of wet wood can be sufficiently dried on the small fire, to a point they'll light up on their own.
 
PropThePolecat said:
This subject has been discussed to death...do a search and you'll find alot of threads about batoning.

To answer some of your questions...


All the time. I live in a wet part of the world and use batoning to prep firewood and get to the dry stuff.


huh?? :confused: A baton is just a stick you hammer your knife with. The forest is full of green branches and sticks. You doint have to be "lucky" to find one.


Id suggest you go out and try it before you post here. Its a effective and fast tecnhique to split wood, as long as you stay within the limits of the knife. And its fun. I dont feel like putting a 2 pound axe in my backpack, when i can prep and get a fire going with my knife.



Yes, alot of us do. Really.
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+1.

In addition to that I baton everytime I am out. Not because I need to, but I am out to enjoy myself. And when I am out, I find batoning is fun, and I enjoy doing it.
 
Even among outdoorsmen this topic is always controversial

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Personally I'm into extreme batoning :D

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FYI, that's me holding the machete
 
When I lived in the drier eastern side of Oregon, batoning was not necessary. On the wet side, it certainly can be an essential technique three seasons of the year, when the dead fall is all soaked in the first half of its diameter and anything laying on the ground is automatically half-worthless or worse.

Folding saws are pretty useful as labor savers in temperate rain forests too.
 
Peak_Oil said:
I have plenty of room for a 19 inch bowie knife, but no room for a 3" tomahawk to actually blast through that wood in record time, so I'll just baton away here, as the sun goes down.
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3" tomahawk? That sounds like something too tiny to do anything. 19" bowie sounds like overkill for batoning - my BK-7 batons just fine! If you had a bowie that was 19" long and a tomahawk that was 3" long then I'd bet the bowie would be the better chopper! If we are talking blade length then I'd say a 19" blade would be pretty good at chopping too.

Peak_Oil said:
Really, do you guys plan on batoning through wood? Do you bring your own baton, or do you figure you'll pick one up as you go?
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If there is wood to baton your knife through then logically there is wood that you can use as a baton. If there is nothing to use as a baton then there would be nothing that needs to be batoned.

Here's my hand holding my BK-7, on the right is a baton (which I had to put down to pick up the camera):
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A good shot of the knife mid-baton:
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A nice top view, baton can be seen on the right of the pic:
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Again the baton is the wood on the right:
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I can assure you, this did not take much time or much energy (and it was fun):
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I didn't actually need to baton that wood, I didn't even need a fire - it was summertime. But I figure I might as well practice fire prep when I don't need it rather than wonder how to go about getting a fire going when I am cold and wet. I certainly had no problem processing some wood without needing an axe or saw - I think my BK-7 and a machete would be a good combo for handling a wide variety of tasks from food prep to fire prep.

Of course I only go camping to play with my knives! ;)

On this occasion much of the wood was firstly chopped to length by my Ganga Ram:
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I find that the batoned wood burns faster and hotter than the original wood would have, good for getting a nice hot fire to warm yourself up and cook your food. Once you have a good fire going and want to relax then big chunks of wood are good for a slower burning fire that you don't have to feed so often.
 
in my experience its not always practical to baton.when i lived in the mid west i never needed to but here on the east coast you will bust a nut if you try to start a fire WITHOUT batoning.the wood stays wet here you just need to give it some love and beat the piss out of it with a stick.haha.it all about location.
 
Bobby Craig said:
When I camp I do baton some. I feel the knife world has taken it too far and is making a sport out of it.

I baton to make kindling for my fires. Never is my batoned kindling any bigger then about an inch wide. Its just a transition size to go from my small fire starting kindling then the medium wood I batoned then comes the big stuff.

On here I see people splitting logs that are 5 inches in dia. I have never had that need but if people want to its their knife and time.

We must not forget that a good outdoor knife is suppose to be able to help you make shelter in an emergency so in some occasions it will be splitting large pieces of wood.

I have scene video of guys batoning 4x4 peaces of post and wonder why. If I was batoning for a fire I would get the corner and get me about and inch in and baton the corners off of transition kindling. I’ve never been camping to where my big logs need to be 18 inches long and in 4 pieces. Just put the wood on the fire.

I bet it will be a sport someday.

All in all....I guess if people have fun doing it then they should do it. Beats wasting your life on dope or being drunk all day.
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Couldn't have said it better myself man. :thumbup:
 
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