Batoning Large Wood With a Small Blade

[shotgunner11]

yall do it because you think there is some skill involved or it makes your knives look good.

Thanks for a warm welcome.

Well, I guess if you can't accept that this is another method of splitting wood, and a valid and reasonable skill I appologize.

And you were welcomed fairly warmly over the past few weeks but you have chosen in this thread to pick arguments, question peoples outdoors experence and refuse valid answers to your questions.


Accept the old adage "To each his own."

 

[laurens]

pict The times I can remember feeling the need I was usually building a fire in the shelter of some big rock wall or overhang while it was raining hard and I was soaking wet. Batonning a chunk of wood into kindling was as much about keeping me from having to go out into the rain and look for stuff that would burn as it was about making sure the fire got lit.

funny I was doing that only yesterday it rains a lot here in wales.

running boar try splitting wood with a small knife + wedges if need be. I personally find it easier to split small wood with a knife particularly if its over say 12 inches in length doing tis with a axe or hatchet seems awkward to me. I find it hard to get my head round battening a folder. I would imagine it’s the same for you and fixed knives. There’s no harm in trying battening, if you don’t won’t to try it with one of your expensive knives get a cheap knife like a mora and give it a go.

ps how do you use quote

 

[Thomas Linton]

ps how do you use quote

Click on "quote" button at lower right of post from which you wish to quote. Quotation marks appear as codes QUOTE and /QUOTE within brackets ( [ ] ).

 

[laurens]

Cliff,
I will go head to head, your sharpened butter knife against my benchmade. I know you were talking about my butcher knife, like you said it suits my purposes and has prepared a lot of my meals.

I am not so sure that I fit into this forum, paying a gazillion dollars for the latest and greatest busse mega knife that is not practical for anything and then pounding it through seasoned hickory just to see if it will do it is not my cup of tea.

Then when I ask a question about why people do it I get a bunch of flak about I am not an outdoorsman and I don't know what I am talking about when it comes to knives and a barely veiled snide comments about butter knives and no real answers about why you would baton wood. For a fire, that is BS, yall do it because you think there is some skill involved or it makes your knives look good.

Thanks for a warm welcome.

I havn't been here long but this seems like quite an emotive issue.running boar You seem like a nice guy but there are different ways of doing things give batterning a try if it doesn't work for you don't do it again.Nothing wrong with your butchers knife I'm sure ity's a awsome slicer.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

I personally find it easier to split small wood with a knife particularly if its over say 12 inches in length doing tis with a axe or hatchet seems awkward to me.

Yes, a lot depends on the wood. Nice clear wood which is easy to split works well with an axe as you can chop split it, assuming you are not trying to do so with a hardwood axe anyway which just sticks in the wood. However as the wood gets full of knots and/or twisted then it is way easier to baton through it. There were pictures on the Swamp Rat forums of some baton splitting done on some of the worst wood I have every seen, included large forked rounds. Try to split that with an axe.

I will go head to head, your sharpened butter knife against my benchmade. I know you were talking about my butcher knife ...

No, I was speaking of the AFCK, and in particular batoning which I have done with a butter knife.

...paying a gazillion dollars for the latest and greatest busse mega knife that is not practical for anything ...

No one was discussing Busse, though it is nice to see you reveal your bias the fact that you had concluded the discussion before it ever started. If you actually read the above posts you would see that the people who were discussing the technique were using knives which cut far better and are far less expensive than the AFCK you carry. You are the one carrying the prybar, the knives I carry and use for batoning would outcut the AFCK many times to one.

-Cliff

 

[runningboar]

What do you carry I would certainly like to find something that out cuts the AFCK.

And yes I am biased, until someone gives me a valid reason to baton I will continue to do things as I do.

I have not picked a fight, I asked a question and was told I did not know what I was talking about, and must never leave my house.

 

[laurens]

What do you carry I would certainly like to find something that out cuts the AFCK.

And yes I am biased, until someone gives me a valid reason to baton I will continue to do things as I do.

I have not picked a fight, I asked a question and was told I did not know what I was talking about, and must never leave my house.

no ones forcing you to batten your knives if you don't won't too, carry on doing it your way.I do feel that people have already given most of the good reasons to batten a knife. I think dave may of offended you but thats no reason to discount everyone reasons. People have different ways of doing of going about things it seems battening isn't for you. however I would urge you to give it a go so at least you can say you have tried it and you feel it doesn't work.(if that’s the conclusion you come to)

 

[Thomas Linton]

I have not picked a fight, I asked a question and was told I did not know what I was talking about, and must never leave my house.

By whom? Were you sent a PM or email to that effect? If so, it was out of line.

 

[laurens]

All of the examples you cite involve you being at home on your own property. I can't really see much of a need to baton wood on one's own property either, since there is almost always a better alternative. However, on a backpacking trip in the rain when all you have is a knife, it can become quite necessary to split wood for a fire. Of course, like you mentioned, you could always whittle the entire exterior of a log to reveal the dry center, but that is going to take a significantly longer amount of time. If you need to quickly start a fire with wet wood and all you have is a knife, I have to say batoning is probably the fastest way to get usable wood.

You also mentioned the issue of damaging your knife by batoning it. The only time I have ever come close to damaging a knife when batoning was when I tried to baton a Mora 760 through a 3.5" diameter log. This was certainly pushing the limits of the Mora. As I was batoning it it started to bend a significant amount. I just took it out of the wood, and there was no permanent damage. Other than that, I have beat the living hell out of some of my knives while batoning and I have never had any chipping, bending, edge deformation, or anything. With a .25" thick spine knife, especially with a good steel like SR101, the only thing that will be damaged while batoning is the baton itself, and of course the wood you are splitting.

i think the comments in the begining of the post offended running boar at least thats what i assumed

 

[Thomas Linton]

i think the comments in the begining of the post offended running boar at least thats what i assumed

Sorry, the way I read it is that when we are at home (or near the motor vehicle of choice), we might better use more specialized tools. In contrast, when "shank's mare" has taken us far from home (or vehicle) the benefit of versatile tools shine forth, while they don't match the capacities of dedicated, specialty tools. It's nice to know I can start a fire in rainy conditions if I have elected not to backpack an axe and only have my BRKT Northstar, Fallkniven F-1, or some other "small" fixed blade. (My first batoning knife was a Camillus Mk. II.)

Like others here, I would only baton a folder if there was no other practical choice.

 

[coote]

This is an entertaining thread.

The "batonability" of a blade is something I don't generally think about when choosing a knife. But I am not beyond using a knife in this way if necessary.

I can think of two examples where batoning has served me fairly well. One is where I use an old slasher blade (brush hook blade) for splitting limbs to make a bow. I drive the blade down through the log from the end using a hefty club. The logs I have split this way would generally be under six inches in diameter. But a slasher blade isn't small.

The other bit of batoning, done only once, occurred when I was butchering a large animal (I can't remember what it was now). Nowadays I will often just bone the meat right off the carcase and leave the ribs attached to the spine. But a while back somebody decided that they wanted chops or ribs. I generally prefer a saw to split the animal down the spine because I don't like the little chips of bone that a cleaver can make...especially when it is wielded by somebody who doesn't use it every day to make a living. Anyway I had this carcase that needed to be split down the back (I think it was a sheep or a pig). I got my khukuri-shaped machete and drove it down through the backbone for the full length of the animal using a bit of round firewood. It did a passable job too, although it did wander away from center a bit of the time. The only bad by-product of this was the small bits of wood that broke off the firewood club and sprinkled all over the carcase.

Hey Runningboar....how about telling us a bit about your snaring experiences. Thanks in advance...Coote.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

One is where I use an old slasher blade (brush hook blade) for splitting limbs to make a bow.

I do the same thing for most carving, or wood working in general. You can take a small stick, 3-4" and split it in a few seconds to make slabs for carving spoons, bark, spuds, or split it again for pegs, skewers, etc. . Much faster than trying to whittle it down which wastes all the wood you are carving off. If you split it instead you get multiple pieces of wood to work with.

What do you carry I would certainly like to find something that out cuts the AFCK.

Right now I am carrying a Jess Horn in ZDP-189, reground to a primary edge of eight degrees per side. If you are just looking for cutting ability in small folder, especially for wood work, just get an Opinel. Krein also does really nice regrinds to maximize cutting ability. Send him your AFCK and tell him to put a profile on it similar to what he ran on my U2. It will outperform the stock AFCK grind many to one.

In regards to a bias, I was speaking of an inability to consider a viewpoint not a contention of one. It is hard to seriously debate that splitting wood has no value for burning or carving when they are fundamental to anyone who burns wood or does any shaping as basic techniques. Now yes in general there are better tools for this than a small folder but from a survival mentality, as Thomas pointed, out you are looking at less than ideal situations.

But even beyond survival it exists as a common wood craft technique. Mear's does it for example in his TV series and he really isn't a overbuilt tactical type of guy. He also does a lot of prying as well with his blades for the same general tasks as it also has benefit in separating wood.

-Cliff

 

[coote]

I've been thinking about this batoning business some more.... although I didn't know that some people called it batoning till I read it on the internet.

By splitting wood (by batoning or whatever) you generally get a piece that follows the grain well. This is quite a significant thing if you are going to make a decent bow or an axe handle....it is much better than trying to saw a bow stave or axe handle from a larger plank when the grain could run anywhere.

Another time folks might have used this technique is when barrel staves or roof shingles needed to be split. Most people would find it a heck of a lot more accurate to drive a separate blade into a log compared to trying to make even splits with an axe (although I am sure some old timers could do it).

Sometimes you might come across a variety of wood that will split comparatively evenly down the length of a log. This must have been a real blessing to the early settlers who didn't have access to power saws. In New Zealand we have a tree called "cedar" (don't know its botanical name) that is reputed to split really well....and I am told that some of the early folks used it for weatherboards.

Of course very few of these people would have used a small folder for the job, but the principle is the same. I think one special tool used for splitting shingles etc is called a "froe".

Another time I have used the batoning technique is when I have wanted to graft a small bit of a fruit tree on to a comparatively large rootstock. A split is made in the rootstock, and a long tapered wedge is carved on to the base of the scion wood (the wood you are sticking on to the root stock) and it is slid into the split. The cambium layers of each piece are carefully lined up with each other, even if it is on just one side of the split. The open surfaces should then be sealed to stop things drying out too much and to help prevent disease spores getting into the split (in the old days they used things like clay and fat). This isn't the only method of grafting, but I like it because the split holds the wedge quite well all on its own without any fancy binding.

Just a couple of days ago I transplanted a plum tree that I had grafted by this method the previous spring. The split still looks fairly horrible, but it is slowly healing over. I am hoping that this will give me an increased crop of nice prune plums in years to come. I had grafted a prune cutting on to a plum seedling that had grown up by my front door.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

I don't do much gardening, but have seen friends do similar. The same general idea is often used to make many primitive tools like fish spears, hand axes and such taking advantage of the inherent binding power of split wood to collapse back on itself. Ideally for that construction you have a knot right at the end of the split which keeps it from running down the shaft.

Splitting wood can also be used to make it much more flexible by using laminates. If you take a piece of wood and split it along the grains and them laminate it back together, it will bend much more than the origional wood because the sections can slide over each other and compensate for the fact that the inside and outside of the curve have to bend at two different amounts. Thinner woods is also inherently more flexible anyway, plus if you have a really nice to split wood you can make a bunch of shingles/slats and thus have a much more permanent shelter than a bough cave. I have also split shingles and carved them flat to make writing pads and plates and while a spoon is a bit of work to make, a spatula is pretty easy, just split and carve out the handle.

A froe like a broad axe have long since been lost simply due to the ease of buying precut lumber. Hence threads like this one where people wonder at the abuse of doing something which was common knowledge just one generation ago. Now of course a froe isn't a Delica, but you didn't always use a full size froe, it depended on the size of wood being split. If you needed to make a few shims you didn't use a froe, a small shop knife and a wooden mallet and a few precise splits produced the shims readily. If you exclaimed abuse when such work was done well then yes you probably would have recieved more than a little fun poked your way, and possibly harsher if you were serious. This is no more than how most people react when people seriously critize them for carrying a knife when the only utility it has it to obviously kill someone.

The main benefit of the froe was the long handle gave you extreme leverage so you could twist the blade to control the split. Try to rotate a knife in the wood to do the same thing. You are at a severe mechanical disadvantage compared to a froe. There are also a large number of brush blades very similar to a froe with the blade just rotated 90 degrees to serve as a rough tool for clearing woody brush, a scythe is a grass version of the same tool. Long heavy blades have an extensive history of many uses.

-Cliff

 

[runningboar]

There is, I admit, a definite use for splitting wood as I have gotten some very intelligent answers other than to build a fire which in my opinion is very rarely neccesary, not building a fire, but splitting the wood to do so. I still would not do it with my pocket knife however, but as I have said my 12" machete does well and I would not hesitate to baton with it again if I needed too, but batoning still ranks low on the priority of skills to learn IMO. Some of this discussion is what I wanted in the first place, not to be told I was ignorant of basic knife skills, and must never leave my property.

Coote,

I am experimenting now with some green colored 20lb test monofilament fishing line, I made a jig, just 2 nails in a board, and am doubling and twisting the line leaving a loop in the end like making a endless loop bow string. The doubled line is strong, stiff enough to hold a good loop, and nearly impossible to see when set. I haven't tried it yet, wrong time of year here, but as soon as cold weather hits I am going too and I will let you know how it does, it is much easier to work with than the stainless wire I have been using. I live trapped a big coon last night to train my dogs with and had a good little race and tree this morning, Good stuff, I will start taking pics if anyone is interested. Chris

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Generally if you carry larger blades or axes there is little call to try to do it with the smaller knives, unless the splitting is precision based. For example awhile back I split a bunch of wood right along the growth rings to make very thin slats for weaving. This would be very awkward with even a small axe and you actually want a light blade to make the precision cuts.

Has anyone tried snaring with natural cordage?

-Cliff

 

[runningboar]

A froe like a broad axe have long since been lost simply due to the ease of buying precut lumber. Hence threads like this one where people wonder at the abuse of doing something which was common knowledge just one generation ago. Now of course a froe isn't a Delica, but you didn't always use a full size froe, it depended on the size of wood being split. If you needed to make a few shims you didn't use a froe, a small shop knife and a wooden mallet and a few precise splits produced the shims readily. If you exclaimed abuse when such work was done well then yes you probably would have recieved more than a little fun poked your way, and possibly harsher if you were serious.

-Cliff

I agree totally, splitting shims off a 2x2 or 1x2 is a far cry from using a Sebenza to split a 4" log. I have used a froe and a mallet and it is the right tool for the job, but I do see the neccessity if survival was at stake, especially as Coote said to make a bow. Chris

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Generally the folders are used on small woods, 1-2" thick. Ritter's description of his use of the RSK sounds much more physical but it is easy to get mislead from a discription especially when all the terms are relative. The hollow ground blade profile on the Sebenza would also make it a difficult blade to split wood with because you would have to be very careful around knots because the grind doesn't well support the edge, it would be similar to trying to use a thin hardwood axe to split a piece of knotty black spruce. With such a knife I would just cut wedges and do little actual batoning unless the wood was really clear.

-Cliff

 

[coote]

I have tried using monofilament for snares. To me it seemed like the ideal choice. I caught some rabbits using nylon monofilament, but I was waiting near my snares and went and retrieved the rabbits within minutes of them being caught....so I will never know if the snares would have held them overnight. I used some of my fishing monofilament...it may have been about forty pound breaking strain.

I have only had a few snares that have been chewed through or broken...maybe four in total after snaring maybe 100 animals. But two of those were heavy monofilament (68.5 kilogram breaking strain)...and these two were the only two monofilament snares I have ever caught possums in (well at least I think they were possums).

So while I think that theoretically monofilament is an ideal snare material, I have been put off it through having these chewed off snares.

I use a flat braided black nylon cord mostly nowadays. I guess the breaking strain of the cord I use most would be about 100 kilograms. I have had this stuff chewed, but it has never been chewed right through...I got the animals in every case. I did use some lighter braid.... and one of these got chewed off.

One thing I did have some success with was heavy black polypropylene box banding strap. I split it into strips maybe three-sixteenths of an inch wide. This stuff is stiff enough to hold a nice open noose shape without support... so it is a bit like wire in this respect. But I had one of these chewed off too.

I have the feeling that a neck snared animal is less likely to chew through the snare. And if you make a light spring-up snare that keeps some tension on the snare, it is harder for the animal to get at the cord to bite it.

I don't really like wire for snares. It doesn't feel as natural to deal with, and I think it is harsher on the animals. Besides, it soon becomes kinked and useless so it is relatively expensive.

Here's a picture of a rabbit snared with monofilament nylon:

 

[Vivi]

Generally if you carry larger blades or axes there is little call to try to do it with the smaller knives, unless the splitting is precision based. For example awhile back I split a bunch of wood right along the growth rings to make very thin slats for weaving. This would be very awkward with even a small axe and you actually want a light blade to make the precision cuts.

Has anyone tried snaring with natural cordage?

-Cliff

I've been making my first few snares recently using woven grass. It'll probably just get chewed through.