Batoning, what is the controversy?

Bushman5 said:
can of worms MDP, can of worms......:D

I am of the school that feels that it is abusing a tool. When int he woods I cannot afford to have a essential tool like a knife possibly break. 99% of of my knives will NEVER ever be subjected to batoning.

the remaining 1% will, Its a Scrapyard SOD and can handle such abuse. ;):D
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You're going to have to adjust that 1% Bushman. I seem to recall
a certain Fallkniven that has found a new home. Think that beauty
is thick enough to stand such abuse :D
 
hector81 said:
the froe is used to start the split. then wood or metal wedges are used to finish the split.
It is exactly the same way we do it with our knives, but in a smaller scale. and with smaller pieces of wood, a lot of times just the knife is enough to split it.
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I suppose you could do that. However, it would be slower. The handle on a froe is there so you can pry the split apart when the cut is deep enough, which you know by experience and trial-and-error. That is how my granddad taught me, and he was taught by his granddad, a roofer in the early and mid 1840's. Lots of splits to make enough shingles to roof a house. 'Course, they were using cedar when possible.

I was taught to use a knife to split wood almost fifty years ago by a Marine MGS teaching a survival course. He also showed us how easy it would be to break a "KA-Bar" by rocking the handle below the tip and smacking the tip (putting leveraging force on the tang.blade junction). Scratch one Mk II.

In a survival situation, you do what you have to do. If you only have a knife to spit wood, and you actually have to split wood (If x 2), it would be nice to know how to do it properly, including how to use wedges.

I have (very carefully) batoned with a pocket knife, but I was only taking off a small peice (for a hearth board) and it's pretty chancy. I didn't hold the handle very firmly.
 
SpookyPistolero said:
I do it all the time, because I'm lazy. Really, really lazy. It's a very simple way to get to dry wood in a jiffy, and to section out wood if you need a flat piece (plus the sharp corners then make for easy fuzzies).

I've batoned a lot of things, from Moras (510 and 2000) to 1/4" bowies, etc. Stick tang and full tang. None have shown ill-effect afterward. But then, I don't do it on 5" oak or anything either.

It's just a tool in the toolbox.
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Well said...I guess this makes me lazy too. But I do it a lot....more of the smaller branches than larger ones, though I will do larger ones to demonstrate a knife's ability to take it. More often than not I am splitting stuff an inch in diameter or less for fire crafting. In the woods I only split what I have too to get a fire going good, after that I let the fire do the work.

When I learned about batoning I had no idea there was a name for it...I was in the woods and needed to split some wood and my short machete got stuck about a third of the way in small a log...at first I raised the thing as a whole up in the air and brought it down a couple of times...then grabbed the next log I intended to split and started hitting the protruding end of the blade. This worked really well and became a "tool in the box" from that day on. But the first time I heard about "batoning" many years later I had no idea what was being referred to until I saw a picture of it.
 
I was at the store and picked up a Mora knife for $8.95 CAN. It's the red handled plastic sheathed ugly one - this one with a 6" non laminated carbon blade. I'll be getting a full set to try out different blade steels (laminated and non laminated, stainless..) and blade lengths. I've owned some before - but always gave them away. I always considered them toolbox knives.

. . .

It was quite true that one of these selected at random will slice paper. It looked as if the blade had been polished to an edge with some rounded grind marks still apparent. When I examined the blade with a 16X magnifier, I saw that I was wrong. There is a minute secondary bevel, quite steep too. The saber grind is also slightly hollow ground. [Ed. SO much for the "Scandi Grind."]

. . .
Oh well off to test with a baton.. One thing I won't try today is Mors Kochanski's notion of how to test a knife for strength. Pg 111 in old book says to drive knife into tree 4cm at right angles to grain, then stand on handle. And I thought I was thorough...

. . .

I must admit that I'm shocked that the handle of the Mora survived the baton beating of the blade. The baton didn't do too well since I didn't bother fire hardening some birch - and the back of the blade is very rough. One way of getting kindling splinters in a hurry. No problem smacking down 3" alder in quantities to build a shelter frame - if you need them that thick. Using a rock instead of a baton is improving the looks of the back of the blade, giving it the crafted hammered look. Chopping small 1" alders is no problem despite the lightness of the knife and the handle was quite comfortable for this. The burning and brushing (with a brasss brush) has created shallow ripples in the handle which give a very stable grip while not affecting comfort.

Shaving a whole pile of dead lower branches from various conifers was no problem, and was a lot more comfortable than using my Gerber Bolt Action pocket knife on a few. Dragging cuts produced fuzzes that curled at the tips. I had a lot more length of blade than I needed and I still don't see much point to such a long blade - but that's just my preference. I find the handle too narrow at the front too - but maybe that's a reflection of what I'm used to using since it isn't uncomfortable - just doesn't feel quite right. If the handle were turned around I'd find it perfect.

The downside of the knife is the lack of lateral strength. I don't think you'd get very far with prying with this knife. I bet I could wrap the blade and bend the knife permanently at the blade/ handle junction with my hands.

Anyway I came home, picked up the weekend advertiser newspaper and no problem shredding it all despite all the cutting the knife had done. I don't think that the only comparable knife I have (a Schrade Deerslayer) could do this despite similar sharpening - I'll have to test them alongside each other.
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From Old Jimbo

Not hardly 3/16" thick. He was using one of the "red handle" Mora's (full-length "rat tail" tang).
 
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I was batonning before I knew what it was called. Anyone who has been out in the bush without an axe or hatchet and needs to start a fire in wet conditions, doesn't have too many other choices than to use his knife as a wedge and whack the back of it. Just made sense to me. I don't think that a knife that is to fragile to be batonned can be called a survival knife. Knifemaker Martin Kruse had it right when he said " Show me a man who hasn't had to abuse his knife and I'll show you a guy whose life has not been interesting enough".
 
Every now and then there's a thread about a broken knife from batoning. Not too much "I broke it" threads from chopping. It does seem to be sensitive to technique. I broke my favourite folder with batoning :( when I was young.
 
kgd said:
I usually rise to the occasion of trying to defend batoning on threads like these. Like others, I find it an activity that is fun to do. Another excuse to use my knife. Like making fuzz sticks. What the hell do I do with all these fuzz sticks anyway....If I made a fire for every fuzz stick I made, I'd have to take up smoking and become a chain smoker at that! Making fuzz sticks is probably abusive too. After all, do it enough and it dulls your edge.

I like the fact that when I baton, I get to use my knife. I like using my knives. I use my knives often when and whenever I can. I make up excuses just to go off and them. Sometimes this means splitting wood with my knife that can more easily be done with an axe. You see, part of my motivation is 'I want that piece of wood split' but the other part is 'I want to use my new custom blade from maker XX'. Sometimes I just want to kill to wants with one stone (or a baton :D).

I hate people labelling batoning as abusive. I hate it when folks do that because it feels like they are trying to project their opinion on my hobby and make some kind of statement about what I choose or not choose to do. The choice of the word 'abusive' has strong negative connotations that is imbued with a sense of morality or ethics. There is also the implicit understanding that 'somebody who engages in abusive activity, must be doing a foolish thing'.

Personally, I think it is foolish to buy a knife and put it in a safe hoping that 2 years from now it will be worth more money than what you bought it for. However, I don't go calling that abuse - abuse of a maker's pride perhaps.....Nope, lets keep the word abuse out of it. I batoned hundreds and hundreds of times and never damaged a blade yet. Now using your tip as a screw driver - that is something that will cause knife failure 50% of the time.

For those of you who might be interested here is an article on batoning that I wrote not to long ago.

http://www.forestandstream.com/kgd/the-skill-of-batoning
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now now, no one is attacking what YOU personally do with your knife. Its simply their opinion and view.....;):p

another way of looking at abuse, is WHY would i subject my knife to such stress when an axe sometimes has a hard time making its way thru the wood?

........its simpler to just find smaller wood, and here in BC we have soo much dead and dry wood already on the ground, there is no need to play wack wack wack a mole on my knives...
 
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I frequently baton through the long bones of those who criticize my bushcraft skillz.
 
^ big difference between a Froe for woodworking and a knife......


[qoute]Knifemaker Martin Kruse had it right when he said " Show me a man who hasn't had to abuse his knife and I'll show you a guy whose life has not been interesting enough".[/qoute]

I've had a very interesting outdoor life and experiences, and i did'nt need to abuse my knife to get those experiences.......

just saying.....no offence to Martin Kruse
 
It has been said to me that most people baton with a knife because they don't know how to do much else with it. Many people label batoning as the ultimate test for a knife. This practice exploded with the internet.


Politically-Neutral-Dog-Batoning--is-a-difficult-issue-Im-Nuetral.jpg
 
Bushman5 said:
^ big difference between a Froe for woodworking and a knife......


[qoute]Knifemaker Martin Kruse had it right when he said " Show me a man who hasn't had to abuse his knife and I'll show you a guy whose life has not been interesting enough".[/qoute]

I've had a very interesting outdoor life and experiences, and i did'nt need to abuse my knife to get those experiences.......

just saying.....no offence to Martin Kruse
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Well.....there is interesting....and then there is interesting....and different levels of each. What some see as interesting, others may see as mortifying. Just like the controversy over batoning, it all depends on the experiences that created your personal perspective.
 
I have never seen a need to baton. My thoughts have already been summed up by others. A log burns just fine and I have never been somewhere that I couldn't find smaller sticks and twigs or even leaves to get a fire going. With the abundance of smaller pieces of wood and tinder around, it is a waste of time and effort to baton.
Not to mention the time you get to spend re-sharpening the knife after you beat the edge through a stick...
 
Joe. It's not about testing. It's about real life. Two week canoe trip in the Yukon Territory. Cold rain for 2 days, folks I'm responsible for cold, wet, shivering. We make camp. Fire has to happen quick. It's not like gymnastics where you get points for form. Anything goes. The knives and axes and saws came out and everyone did what had to be done to get that fire going. Sawing, splitting, batoning, fuzz sticks, all the above. The only test is; did we get the fire going? We did.
 
Thomas Linton said:
I suppose you could do that. However, it would be slower. The handle on a froe is there so you can pry the split apart when the cut is deep enough, which you know by experience and trial-and-error. That is how my granddad taught me, and he was taught by his granddad, a roofer in the early and mid 1840's. Lots of splits to make enough shingles to roof a house. 'Course, they were using cedar when possible
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hey thomas, I only had experience with splitting very large tone wood for guitar tops. and I always used wedges. thanks for the info!
and cedar is a nice wood for a guitar top! :D
 
If you do not wish to abuse your knife, baton properly or not at all. Obviously, your choice.

Axes get broken with improper technique, as do saws, fingers, legs, and heads.
 
I think I have to accept it, a similar situation is a friend introduced me to his oil field working friends, I had some knives and they really liked them and asked how the would work cutting off the top of some chemical cans? Turns out if the cans have not been opened and there is a quick need for the chemical they grab what every is near and open the can to pour (it has a small opening).

We opened a couple of cans with a drop point but I told them to wait and I made some heavier knives with O1 to open cans and know they would last a long time, everyone is happy. Please let me know if you are going to smash the ------ out of one of my knives, I will be batoning some knives tonight, just for fun, just because I have alot of knives. I know the flat grinds will do well but I have some new hollow grinds that will be interesting to see.
 
So, upon reading all the well thought out replies that I have received...

It seems that there is no controversy.

Merely, some people see it as an effective technique, and some do not.

No flames, a good discussion.

Marion
 
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