Battoning

TL, thanks for the answer.
I will go out on a limb here (not batoning it) and assume you needed to get to the dry interior portion for tinder??
If so, (and I know various region vary in forms of trees and vegetation) then that speaks to no other means of tinder, no dead wood, nothing?
Even a wet stick on the ground, can be shaven, wittled, to expose dry material. that's why i make note.

I guess I am just trying to clarify as to needing to get to this magical interior wood. Which is where the batoning discussion usually leads us.

I understand the cutting vs. splitting part, it would be like having a peice of wood, and wanting to cut it (sever) in half, across the grain. You could simply place it on something, place your knife blade across it, and hit the blade with a baton to make the cut. Understood.

Ultimately, I think we are trying to get beyond the act itself, and more to the reason's behind it.
 
Okay, Skunk sounds like he's on meth, that is the most tedious explanation of fire preparation that I have ever heard :D

Yes. There are times when it is right to split wood. Even in the woods. And when that happy circumstance occurs, we will use whatever tool we have at hand.

But my initial rant, and I may not have said it correctly, was why in the hell do we have to put every knife up against the test of splitting a log? When it is not necessary. Or expedient.
 
HoB said:
Mmmh, I am amused by this hammering and splitting with a maul, what are you guys taking to the woods? A 15 lbs sledgehammer? Or is someone actually thinking that you would stand at your backyard logpile with a 4" knife to make firewood for the fireplace?

Batoning is just one of many options, but it is a very sensible means to an end.
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Well actually, during this discussion someone did indicate they were standing by their backdoor batoning with a knife.
Which just leads to the questions.

We don't carry 15lb. sledge hammers in the woods, and it's been pointed out that Logs don't just grow from the ground and present themselves for splitting. So batoning as a means of creating burnable firewood doesn't seem to be the end game?
If you have tools to make logs in the forest, you probably have tools, also to split them down. or, you simply start small and roll entire logs onto the fire, been there, done that.

I am not For or Against anything, nor am I suggesting anyone justify their techniques, or defend their equipment, or their honor.

I am simply trying to understand the circumstances surrounding the need to baton. Whether it's a matchstick, or a 3"x3" piece of square stock.

Heck, I may even learn something!

I'm betting Doc doesn't baton small sticks just to pass time away, he probably has a purpose in mind, an end result, Goal oriented.
That's what I am after.

OK, I heard cutting a walking stick to length. so far, so good.
It was done in the absence of a fixed blade, or anything stouter than a folding knife. understood.
 
The hammer and maul was just a funny mental picture that I got: an ultralight hiker with sneakers and featherweight clothing, shouldering a 15 lbs sledgehammer, and the jacket dragged to his knees by the splitting maul :D.

Well, batoning across the grain is possible, but often more difficult so you baton at some angle. Or you can use batoning to make a notch as well. The only purpose is to save wrist strength when chopping is inefficient (with the smaller fixed blades and even with larger blades on larger branches that can not be cleared in one swipe or two). Also it allows a pretty small blade to do a much wider scope of work. Once you have tried it, you might look at your hatchet and wonder if you really want to carry the additional weight, because many things you can do with a decent smallish blade.

As for the dry wood, it's a simple practical argument: If I want fuel for a fire for a few hours, I'd rather not spend another few hours looking for some, especially if it is raining anyway. One smallish standing dead tree serves the need well. If I have a folding saw, felling it is no problem if not it can be felled by notching (batoning again) pretty quickly. Once down and at the camp site I still have to get it into a shape that is easily burnable. A folding saw to cut it in sections and splitting with a knife (batoning) seems to me the fastest way of doing it. Sure, a hatchet would work to, if I have one, but to quarter 3-5" logs with a hatchet especially without a decent chopping block seems to me actually slower than splitting with a knife and not nearly as safe either, unless you are very, very good with your hatchet (I am not). It is all about what works for you.

It seems that some people that have never tried it imagine batoning as this bludgoning of a poor little knife with a big club, trying to beat the crap out of the blade. In truth it takes very little to split a log with a knife. Maybe you need to hit a little harder to get it started, but initially you hit it square on the spine anyways, once the split is initiated you can usually almost tap the knife through. It is actually fairly energy conserving. No you are not beating a skilled man with an axe or a hatchet on a chopping block, but it is a perfectly sensible technique if you want to travel with the minimum of equipment.
 
Coldwood said:
Okay, Skunk sounds like he's on meth, that is the most tedious explanation of fire preparation that I have ever heard :D

Yes. There are times when it is right to split wood. Even in the woods. And when that happy circumstance occurs, we will use whatever tool we have at hand.

But my initial rant, and I may not have said it correctly, was why in the hell do we have to put every knife up against the test of splitting a log?
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OK, I am with you, and mostly for the fact that if a knife is stout enough, a fixed blade, it's pretty obvious based on its heft that it can take some beating. One the other hand, I don't have one folder that I would whack with a stick, unless we were talking Life and Death or pretty dammed serious, you know , like a Zombie invasion, or maybe an IRS audit. :D

Which is why I am merely interested to know for what purpose this serves.
What does the batoning produce for me, what do I have at the end of it.
Have a i gotten from point A to point B, and why?
 
The splitting maul wedges the wood apart - like using a steel splitting wedge. Using a knife and baton is much more a matter of cutting -- easier with the grain but possible at any angle. I prefer to use something closer to 3/16", but have done it with Old Hickory butcher knives, MORA's and an Official Boy Scout pocket knife (carefully!).

It's not that I have frequent need. Mostly you burn what's there to gather and process using just hands -- plus ocasional feet and knees. But when the need arises -- urgent need for a fire in an area where it's been raining steady for days -- its useful to be able to do.

If you are arguing that there is no need, there would also be no need for an axe or saw. Were you planning on no knife either?


Ed: Batoning is lots faster and uses less energy than whittling.
 
SkunkWerX said:
Hey Pit, we knew it was a joke, and also a great picture of the wrath of mother-nature.
It was a joke???:eek:
My idea of when i would need to Baton Wood, would be if I needed , to make something out of wood, not just wittle, but actually fabricate something, and needed some farily durable pieces of wood, not dead sticks.

This would require sawing a log with a pocket saw or bow saw, then batoning square stock out of the log that was cut. This would be a lot of effort for firewood, but, would be necessary for actual Woodwork.

If i was in the wilderness with a chainsaw, or two man bucksaw, then I would have a maul and wedge for splitting.

If you don't have a hatchet, or any other beefy tool, and you have to split down further, your quartered logs, then I guess Batoning is where you are.

Again, just my personal thoughts and how i have handled firewood and woodwork during my life.
Good discussion.

Maybe I'll just ask outright, when is batoning a necessity? or the preferred called for way of reducing stock?
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I was thinking about this while 'batoning' an apple by the sink and when I asked myself, "when do I baton a piece of wood?", well, Skunk, I realized you provided the answer -to make something out of wood- I realized that the usual time I baton is to make fire boards and drills when teaching friction fire. If I had a hatchet or a machete along, fine, I'd use it, but usually I don't. Besides that would be overkill for so small a splitting job. And maybe you have a point, when is it a necessity? Maybe never, but the same could apply to a lot of things we do. Batonning is, just like you pointed out, one more tool in the kit.

Doc
 
Personally, I baton quite a bit for wood fires out in the yard to grill. Mainly because I don't have a hatchet or axe, which is a problem I will hopefully soon fix, but also because my 1/4" thick 8" fixed blade is usually what I have on hand. Granted, it may not be absolutely necessary to baton the usually small logs that I tend to use, but it gives me a more spread out fire for cooking and lights easier. Plus, it's kind of fun... :P

Josh
 
Guys. C'mon. We've all been in the woods. We all know how to gather kindling. We've all split wood for the stove. My point, AGAIN, is I ain't gonna waste time trying to baton a stick when I can just stick it on the fire. I think we all know how to start a fire and keep it going. Yes?

I admit that I might want to split out a stave for a bow...but that would be a rare occasion.

There is a tendency, on the computer, to magnify minor details; on foot, this stuff will disappear.
 
Hob, please understand, I am not trying to be argumentative and I appreciate your taking the time to explain. Everyone looks at things differently, so I will explain myself, and perhaps you may see where I am coming from.

OK, so I fell a small dead tree for my fire while it's raining because it's close by , and foraging is less than appealing, following your example.
Now, do I want to stand there while it's raining and baton, split or "work" this wood? No, not me.
If it is moveable, I'm dragging/rolling the whole thing over, and putting the end in the fire, and feeding it in, foot by foot, yard by yard.

If it's not moveable, then I have to cut it into mananageable sections.
Already getting to be a lot of work, considering it's already raining. (again your example).

So, now the peices are large but manageble, Then I place their ends in the fire. In order to baton through the wood, it would need to be what, 2 foot lengths? This is just me talking , I'm not standing in the rain, sawing and prepping firewood anymore than I have to. I'm getting it down to a moveable piece, and then either feeding it in, end-wise, or, laying it's midsection into the fire and burning it in half. Done.

And it is situations like this as why I am asking the questions, this batoning appears that it is causing me more labor and more work, for what? So I have nice bite sized piece of wood to burn? I may need that for a fireplace or woodstove, but in the wilderness, as long as I can drag it or roll it, I can burn it.
And I speak from years of experience, I have literally laid a 20 foot long peice of wood over a fire, burned it in half, then proceeded to feed the two peices into the fire, like feeding a locomotive boiler. Much more efficient much less work overall. I'd rather be near the heat source, pushing the log a little further along, than 100 yard away, batoning through wood I've been cutting for an hour or two in the rain.

Especially With rain in that equation, I just can't see the point in reducing wood down any farther than need be. Yes, perahps to get a very small bit of dry wood to get the fire started, fine, but not processing firewood.

Once down and at the camp site I still have to get it into a shape that is easily burnable.
This is my question, why?? What more has to be done to make wood burnable. If it's in camp, then I will tell you right here, it's burnable!
You didn't baton through the base of a 3 foot diamter tree, I know that much.

Has nothing to do with axes, hatchets, saws, batoning, or what have you.
Least amount of work, for most amount of gain, in this case a fire.

To be honest, I actually see it as unecessary and as "Busy work".

NOW, with that said, if you enjoy it, if it kindles the "mountain man" spirit in someone, then I will raise a glass to you and say carry on! We each have our ways of doing things.

Thank you and everyone for their time explaining and discussing this , again, it is not ME telling anyone that Batoning is bad, it's just me trying to figure out how I've gone all this time, in the woods, cutting firewood, camping ,hiking, and never really batonned a knife for any real purpose.
 
Coldwood said:
Guys. C'mon. We've all been in the woods. We all know how to gather kindling. We've all split wood for the stove. My point, AGAIN, is I ain't gonna waste time trying to baton a stick when I can just stick it on the fire. I think we all know how to start a fire and keep it going. Yes? I've grasped that concept, am I missing something?

I admit that I might want to split out a stave for a bow...but that would be a rare occasion.

I have a tendency, on the computer, to magnify minutiae; on foot, this stuff will disappear.
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Coldwood, you took up much less space to say what I was getting at.
Thank you.

Doc, thank you too, we are recognizing that a procedure such as batoning is part of processing wood for further technical usage. There is probably a fine line between chopping cutting sawing and actual woodworking, that will give us all something to discuss another day.
Batoning is splitting or cutting wood by means of hitting a cutting tool.
For me it's not the process itself, it's what it might do for me, where it gets me. I'm just goal oriented like that.
Thanks for your thoughts, they are always informative and eye opening.
(And typcailly ar less abrasive than some of mine.) ;) :thumbup:

Thanks all.

Also , for the fella who batons wood becasue he doesn't have a hatchet, carry on! I understand, we have to make due with what we have on hand.
Try a meat cleaver, they work great, but, watch those fingers, they don't grow on trees. :D
 
Coldwood said:
Guys. C'mon. We've all been in the woods. We all know how to gather kindling. We've all split wood for the stove. My point, AGAIN, is I ain't gonna waste time trying to baton a stick when I can just stick it on the fire. I think we all know how to start a fire and keep it going. Yes?

I admit that I might want to split out a stave for a bow...but that would be a rare occasion.

There is a tendency, on the computer, to magnify minor details; on foot, this stuff will disappear.
Click to expand...


Coldwood, probably the only time I would baton some wood as firewood is in the wet and I needed to get to some dry wood. Otherwise, I'm as lazy, make that energy conserving (life saving in a survival situation), as the next guy. The fire is going, and I got a log? That fire is cutting that log in half for me, and in half again, and in half again............

I don't think about, "Hey, I'm going to have to baton that wood." If it's there, and it needs doing, and it's what I have to work with, it gets done. I don't think anybody is trying to say that a batonned knife should take the place of an axe, saw, hatchet, whatever. However, in a survival situation, we have to look past definitions and conventions- what is a knife, how is it used, etc. At the same time, I acknowledge you have to protect, arguably, your most important survival tool (after your brain and body, of course).

But, as always, the bottom line - to each their own.

Doc
 
Skunk,
I know that my last post sounds pretty much like yours, but I wanted to make my position clear. And thanks for the kind words, by the way.

Doc
 
Just last weekend, i was at my parents house, (Yes, i still visit my parents.) and my mom wanted me to make a fire. (In Norway most houses have a woodburning stove for heat.) Well, the wood was mainly in rather big chunks. Some almost not fitting into the stove. I didn`t wanna go outside to split it into smaller-sized kindling, so i used my Becker Necker, and a piece of wood from the pile next to the stove. Took me about 5 minutes to baton out a good amount of kindling. I then broke off a piece of some kind of tinder. I think it`s paper mulch, impregnated with wax. And lit the fire.

Did i have to split the wood? No, not really. The fire would`ve taken anyway, but i`ve also seen my dad light the stove, where it usually goes out after a minute or two, as he never uses smaller-sized kindling.
Smaller sizes of wood, catches more easily.
(I guess i`m just in touch with my inner pyromaniac.)

Also, i was walking in the woods sometime in september. I was just minding my own business, with an Ontario RAT-3 in my pocket, when i came over a tree that had grown across the trail. I wanted it out of the way, so i looked around for a while for a baton, and batoned that 2-inch tree down.
Did i have to? No, was it fun? Kinda.

So, i think the moral is that knives don`t have to be batoned with, but if you need to cut, or split something, and all you have is a knife, that it should be able to take it.

Heck, i would even baton with a fillet-knife if i didn`t have anything else.
Knives are just tools. And as Doc said, to each their own.
 
Skunk: The point of having a forum is to express different opinions so please be as argumentative as the topic requires, as long as we are working the topic and it doesn't go personal, I think it is all good. And this seems to be a pretty civil and productive discussion. I for one at least like to read everybodies point of view on this.

Well, if you want to feed the wood end wise (or burning through the middle) you need to have already a pretty decent fire going, which you have achieved by gathering a pretty decent amount of dry deadfall, which is a step that is quite time consuming, and which I'd rather avoid. Also, feeding a tree endwise makes in my experience for a pretty small fire (no surprise, because of the small exposed surface). It will last you very long, but it won't keep you very warm at least not until you have some glowing "coals" accumulated. If you want a bit larger fire, the burning through the log or endwise feeding isn't really all that satisfactory to me at least. Not to mention that you reach the stage of reliable fire with a good amount of glowing coals on which you might cook for example much faster, if you have the chance of building it from the start, instead of slowly increasing the sized by first burning sticks, then burning through a log and finally feeding two sections of a tree endwise. All in all I don't think you are really saving time.

But yes, I would also drag the tree to the camp site, cut of a couple of sections, split those, start building the fire, and while the fire is already going I would take care of the rest of the tree and would cut or split no more that is necessary to keep the fire in such a condition that I am happy with. And really, how long does all that cutting and splitting going to take you....probably less time than finding a standing dead and much less time than gathering the same amount of fuel from (dry) deadfall. With my folding saw you can cut a 5" tree in probably 30 sec. (I think I am going to clock myself the next time I practice building a fire, I am curious now as well so the following is just an estimation). So in 3 minutes I have 6 sections (after cutting and dragging to the campsite). On split takes no more than 10 sec at most, so in 7 min total I have 24 quarters, small enough to build a decent fire. Now I can invest another 3 minutes by taking one or two of those quarters to make shavings and small kindling to get the fire started. Longer than I would "like" to sit in the rain but all in all not unreasonable I would say?

I think it is a matter of where you save the time. You might get a fire started quicker, but I am not sure you will make a fire that provides decent warmth, is capable of boiling a pot of water for some hot coffee, and doesn't have to be tended on a minute by minute basis any quicker.
 
I do understand the beauty and necessity of making kindling, as I have a small wood stove in the living room. Sorry I got so exercised about batoning ;) We've had some good informative posts here, different ideas about fire making, thanks to all.
 
I was out all last weekend after 5 days of rain almost 6 inches worth. The only dry wood available other than some small twigs was what I could get from batoning. So yes it has its uses and usually when everything is so wet it wont burn.

Those in dry climes need not worry about it. Those in perpetually wet environments you know what I am talking about.

SKam
 
skammer said:
I was out all last weekend after 5 days of rain almost 6 inches worth. The only dry wood available other than some small twigs was what I could get from batoning. So yes it has its uses and usually when everything is so wet it wont burn.

Those in dry climes need not worry about it. Those in perpetually wet environments you know what I am talking about.

SKam
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It doesn't always rain here. It only seems that way. :D
 
I'm blaming Coldwood for my outbursts, from now on!! :D :D

he just knows how to get the forum all riled up. ;)
 
I've used light batoning a few times to get a piece of wood into kindling size pieces when there was a shortage of dry twigs, but for the most part, I get my wood from breaking it off of larger pieces.

I tend to stomp on dead limbs to break them smaller (protecting my head). It give me a chance to improve my stomp kick.

Clint Hollingworth
The Wandering Ones webcomic
http://www.wanderingones.com
 
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