I realize I'm a bit late to the party...but life...keeps me busy.
Before reading any of the posts, I looked at the pictures and said to my self, "Self, that pine has a lot of resin in it. That's no bueno." So, good on Ethan for offering to help. Also good to note possible poor batoning technique. I would go further than Bladite and suggest poor choice of wood. Pine resin makes for some really tough wood and is hard on a knife. It also makes the wood burn hotter and faster, two things I'm not looking for in firewood. Speaking of firewood, I'm in the camp that I process most firewood with fire. I use the smaller branches for kindling and anything smaller than 8" or so goes straight into the fire. Anything bigger needs and axe, not a knife. Why make life harder than it has to be?
Customer taken care of, and hopefully lessons learned by lots of folks. Sounds like a "win" to me.
Glad to see that Ethan/Kabar are going to get things sorted out
. I was pretty sure they'd handle it well (from seeing other past situations like this), but its always good to reaffirm something like that :thumbup:.
I was going to mention that about the wood too. It looks almost like the wood is solid (or at least with a higher percentage than normal) resin. It makes GREAT firestarting material, but it is harder to process down.
I used to baton all sorts of crazy things, as it was new, fun, and "cool" (and, I owned a BK2... what else do you do with a BK2 if not baton). Then I got a BK9, and batoned even BIGGER things, and never had a problem. Somewhere in the midst of all of that batoning, I found that it sometimes wasn't worth the effort that it took to split a piece.
For me, right now I typically only baton to start a fire. I also usually only baton straight grained smallish (2-4in diameter maybe?) wood for those situations. Just something big enough to get me enough kindling thats dry for a fire. While I know I can baton larger pieces, I've just gotten lazy, and found that I don't need to spend the time any energy for it most of the time (doing what I do).
If I were "processing" wood for something larger than a camp fire (like if I heated my house with wood), I'd be mostly using a chainsaw, splitter, and/or axe. Not because I feel that I am morally superior or something like that. Just because I'm lazy, and those are the fastest ways to get what I would need. That said, after I used all of those tools to cut and split everything, I'd keep a fixed blade in the kindling box to make more kindling if needed in a safe manner right by the stove.
TLDR: I think batoning is a great controlled way to make kindling. Just isn't the greatest/most efficient method to make "firewood".
