Do you ever baton your axe?

Do you?

  • Never

    Votes: 3 21.4%

  • Very rarely

    Votes: 3 21.4%

  • Sometimes

    Votes: 5 35.7%

  • Quite often

    Votes: 3 21.4%
  • Total voters
    14
G

Guy McVer

Joined
Mar 22, 2022
Messages
2,179
I'm curious how many of you do or don't baton your axe heads, how often, why/when you do it, or why you don't do it.
 
The way my dad taught me .... no baton needed when there is no space; (1) get the axe to bite the wood enough to lift it; (2) turn the axe around and hit the chopping block with the axe butt.
 
I have a POS import hatchet that I sometimes take camping. I baton it with my Estwing geology hammer to split rounds up to 8” in diameter. The geo hammer is narrow enough to chase the hatchet all the way through the near side of the log.
 
When I want precise sized splits of wood or if I’m out of position to strike squarely I will baton. Otherwise I don’t.
 
ferider said:
The way my dad taught me .... no baton needed when there is no space; (1) get the axe to bite the wood enough to lift it; (2) turn the axe around and hit the chopping block with the axe butt.
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Yep stick the bit, flip it over, and strike with the poll.

For me thats the go-to, even with the broad hatchet I generally just use the mallet to stick the bit in the precise spot before flipping it over.
 
Square_peg said:
I have a POS import hatchet that I sometimes take camping. I baton it with my Estwing geology hammer to split rounds up to 8” in diameter. The geo hammer is narrow enough to chase the hatchet all the way through the near side of the log.
Click to expand...
And to think some people ( me usually, with regards to knives ) like to think of batoning as hammering , who would have thought you could hammer on a cutting tool with an actual hammer ? 😁
 
I do it to split kindling down. It’s easier for me to hold the hatchet in a certain spot and use another piece of wood as my baton. I camp a lot in smaller parks or roadside pullover type camping so using this method keeps the noise and action down for people around me.

More people should do it, they’d spend less time swinging and hitting into the ground lol.
 
We used to use our axes as wedges sometimes to split wood. We had a "maul" made out of wood, usually some kind of tough wood, so not to strike axe heads or steel wedges with metal hammers. Wedges worked better because of their angle, and no handle to risk damaging. We split oak blocks up to 48 inches in diameter down to fire wood like this.
 
Why not make a small wedge and hammer the wooden wedge with another piece of wood?

beating on an axe seems like an unnecessary thing to do, since the axe can make proper splitting wedges quickly and easily.
 
Elgatodeacero said:
Why not make a small wedge and hammer the wooden wedge with another piece of wood?

beating on an axe seems like an unnecessary thing to do, since the axe can make proper splitting wedges quickly and easily.
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An axe head already is a splitting wedge, and it should have no problem withstanding the force of batoning.

What you're saying would make perfect sense if we were talking about knives, and I would completely agree if that was the case, but it isn't.
 
I often do with my hatchet when making kindling or trying to split a shake.
 
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I don’t see any need to baton an axe, and it seems similar to using the poll as a hammer, which will ruin most axes (since they do not have a hardened poll). Everyone is free to treat their tools as they wish, but I don’t see a need or a good reason to do so.
 
Quite often.
Typically during more precise cuts and typically cross grain. But also, fairly common when splitting long logs (axe, tomahawk, etc. gets batonned along with wooded wedges to keep a split going). Also for making pockets in wood. Many applications come to mind.
 
Elgatodeacero said:
I don’t see any need to baton an axe, and it seems similar to using the poll as a hammer, which will ruin most axes (since they do not have a hardened poll). Everyone is free to treat their tools as they wish, but I don’t see a need or a good reason to do so.
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I whack the back/poll of the axe with a previously split piece, or a good stout branch. Don't think that's going to ruin an axe, sure hasn't hurt any of mine.
 
Elgatodeacero said:
Why not make a small wedge and hammer the wooden wedge with another piece of wood?

beating on an axe seems like an unnecessary thing to do, since the axe can make proper splitting wedges quickly and easily.
Click to expand...
In our PNW conifer forests there isn’t often a suitable hardwood to make a wedge. I will sometimes find a suitable yew.
 
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