How often do you baton with your fixed blades?

V

viper2788

Joined
Jul 19, 2012
Messages
73
To me, being able to baton with a fixed blade is simply just a cool feature a good knife has to offer, not a necessity. Back when my buddies and I used to have bonfires in high school, I dont think any of us carried a knife, and we NEVER had any issues making a fire. The only time I see batoning to be necessary might be when everything is wet outside and you need to chop into dry wood. Otherwise, it seems like a waste of time as far as making a fire. I admit, it can be "fun" sometimes, and I have batoned with my TOPS blade just to see if it can, but only to confirm its capabilities.

Point being, I dont think I use my bushcraft knife nearly as much as some other folks here or on youtube videos I've seen... I do go fishing/camping often, but theres only so many "chores" to do. Anyone care to share your experiences?
 
Battoning or splitting wood isn't something that is new at all nor a big deal one way or another, defiantly not as big a deal as some seem to think it is.

Anyway this topic has been done to death so many times for some reason...
 
I always baton wood to make fires when backpacking because then you have sharp edges for the fire to catch on. I dont use axes much because they are just too heavy. If it is a large fixed blade knife ie an onario rtak 2, buck hoodlum etc... batoning and chopping is basically the only task i use my fixed blade for, if it is smaller such as maybe a kershaw bear/antelope hunter i will use it for food prep, but generally for most light duty tasks i will use a folding knife
 
Never. I use a hatchet, axe, tree or chainsaw for the heavy stuff. That is what they were made for.
 
The only times I've ever batonned in my entire life were when I needed a picture of a knife being batonned. :)
Never had any need.
Denis
 
I have done it, mainly to see how particular knives perform, but if I think I might be making a fire I take an axe.
 
I do it just about every time I use my knife in the outdoors. Mainly because I enjoy doing it. Same reason for chopping. It's fun. Is it necessary? Most certainly not. Is it fun? You be the judge on that.
 
I like an axe or hatchet for splitting the larger wood, I just find it easier.

However, I find it safer to baton the light kindling up for starting the fire. Less chance of injury in my opinion for what it's worth.

How do you start your fires without small kindling anyway? Gas?
 
marcinek said:
Twigs.
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Yeah, it really is completely dependent on what kind of wood you have available.

If you are camping in a campground, it might be frowned upon to use anything other than designated firewood.

Back country or survival camping, I'm sure you could just gather dead wood and would need nothing more than a good knife to make tinder and a fire steel, matches, or lighter.

Different geographic areas will likely require different tools.
 
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Enough to let her know that I still love her.


Though, when I baton, I'm not splitting logs in half, I baton the edges off.
 
Jet B said:
How do you start your fires without small kindling anyway? Gas?
Click to expand...

Actually, sometimes we would fill a small water bottle with gasoline... makes it easy breezy. But for the most part, we'd bring newspapers or something and then find kindling around the area. If we forget that we'd just find dry grass or leaves. Theres often broken branches all around our "spot" in the woods, so for bigger logs(thick as upper arms) we'd either step of them or hit em against a tree.
 
Not a big fan of Battoning. Rather use an ax if splitting wood is ness.. (usually don't need too though)

With that said, it is a good skill to know.

Did a liitle "grab and go" outing this past winter. Literally grabbed my day pack, boots and coat and went with whatever I had.
Sometimes "you have to go with what you got" (I paraphase)

Anyway - Went down to my camp, it was snowing, mud, wet, etc. - really did NEED to batton.

Wood was wet, didn't have the ax - just my BK 7 (always have it)

Got to the dry wood inside, and stayed warm. (couple beers helped too) :D

Like I said, a good skill to know, but in a real situation, and unless it's absolutely ness., rather keep my knife sharp.
Too many other/easier ways to get firewood without risking your knife. JMHO



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Now if it's just "fun" and you have a knife you don't care about and want to wail the piss out of it, that's a different story.
 
I usually will baton for kindling pretty much every time I go camping. It makes nice kindling and gets my fires up and going faster than I can with twigs and small pieces of wood. YMMV
 
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