Can u baton with a CAK?

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EdgeTim

Joined
Jan 2, 2006
Messages
104
I ask in terms of splitting smaller lighter logs, using a log to baton/split the log? I hope im making sense.

I have a CAK on the way and I plan for it to be used as my main survival/camping/ etc knife. It will be retiring a camp axe and a larger bowie as well as a smaller knife.

I know the spine is a bit softer then the edge and I dont want to mess this thing up.

Thanks in advance for any responses.
 
You definitely can. Just don't use metal objects for batoning:)
My CAK experienced some baton-enforced wood splitting and it left no traces on the spine.
 
The spine might be softer than the edge, but if a wooden baton put so much as a dent onto it I would seriously be surprised :p

That said, I've batoned wood with my 15" AK and 18" Vojpuri without much issue... it's a bit difficult at first due to the angled blade and difficulty in assessing how much of the blade you can actually use. Once you overcome these issues though, you'll see that the thickness of the kukri makes it excel at this chore when compared to other large knives. In fact, my 18" Vojpuri has replaced my machete and ax combo during camping trips :D

My suggestions:

First off, read Karda's take on the issue... I based my technique off his words combined with personal experience.

What's very true about Karda's information is that you don't want to bite off more than you can chew. Just be sure to only use the hardened section of the blade and to only hit slightly forward of the angle of the spine (just to give yourself a margin of error concerning the unhardened tip). As a rule of thumb, I only use the area starting from parallel the spine angle up to where the tip begins to curve back up (and this is the MAXIMUM size of log I would try to baton - generally a good inch or two less).

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YES! The CAK can sure baton!

Good advice above on striking -- stay away from the tip. What I do is place the sweet spot on the log, and then hit on either side of the "angle" of the spine. In other words, it's the opposite of a knife, where you baton towards the tip. On a kukri, you strike on your side of the log, not on the tip's side.

The size of the wood you can split is determined by the length of the kukri.
 
I don't have a CAK yet. But my M-43 and AK both take batoning without any problems at all.
 
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You can baton with chiruwa ang khola's. The angle is a little akward, and if you have wood thats really thick you may find yourself in a position of having to baton near the handle. This can be a problem because some of the handles use very soft aluminum pins that sheer when force is applied to them. If your able to push the pins out they aren't hard to replace with harder material (and then sand the tang to be flush), or you can do more extensive handle mods if they sheer like mine.

Ideally, you should never hit your handle when batoning. On hidden tang your likely to put a crack in the wood or horn.

Personally, If I could redo the handle mod (And I might at some point) I would put allen screws and stand offs, like I did on the far left knife in this photo: http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj265/lastvisiblecanary/wP1000647_3_4_5_6_tonemapped.jpg . It currently has grade 5 1/4" bolt screws in it and I doubt it's going anywhere, But having used the screws and stand offs I'm never going back to pinned scales again if I have a choice.
 
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