Process wood with 4" knife?

R

readyme

Joined
Oct 4, 2004
Messages
762
I guys, I am trying to expand my knowledge for wood processing.
I want your opinions on the best way to process wood with a folding hand saw and a 4.25" blade knife (Bark River Bravo 1).
I used to simply baton almost anything when I had a 10" blade, but I want to carry less.

1. I could simply saw everything, but that is amazingly inefficient.
2. Only baton small pieces.
3. Start a crack and use a hand carved wood wedge.

Any help would be great.
 
I think a wedge might be more labor intensive than simply batoning. Another way to save effort is to use the fork of a tree to twist a longer branch into chunks via breaking, which is fairly simple, but for breaking wood down, the saw and then batoning seems to me to be a decent method.
 
use smaller pieces of wood. no battoning needed. a cooking or fire for warmth doesn't need 8" rounds to work
 
NEWB alert. First post. Hi to all.

Is this for burning? For camp fires use smaller pieces big as your arm and saw part way through then break them off. For small camp fires break them off a foot long at the longest, bonfires whatever length suits you.
 
Welcome seeyalater.

If it is for a fire, I cut or break mine long, burn it in the middle and then put the ends on. Chris
 
readyme said:
I could simply saw everything, but that is amazingly inefficient.
Click to expand...

I think most folks consider a folding saw to be one of the most efficient ways to process wood, period. Is your saw a high quality by Bahco or Silky, etc.? You should be able to go through 5" woods like butter. It should be a lot more efficient than whatever else you are doing.
 
for chunks of wood thicker than your blade, a wedge makes perfect sense, and need only take a minute or two to carve out. IAWoodsman has a video or two on small knife techniques for cutting down trees with a Mora, and splitting long bolts with a short knife. If you use the tip to twist-split, you can efficiently split a piece of wood considerably larger than your knife exactly where you want it.
 
readyme said:
I guys, I am trying to expand my knowledge for wood processing.
I want your opinions on the best way to process wood with a folding hand saw and a 4.25" blade knife (Bark River Bravo 1).
I used to simply baton almost anything when I had a 10" blade, but I want to carry less.

1. I could simply saw everything, but that is amazingly inefficient.
2. Only baton small pieces.
3. Start a crack and use a hand carved wood wedge.

Any help would be great.
Click to expand...

You're on the right track - an efficient, quality saw is your friend. Use it to make a baton from some solid wood, cut firewood to length (which is also helpful for splitting purposes). Use your knife to baton/split/prepare kindling and make a fire.

If you have access to large-diameter wood, you can split off flats via baton and use wedges to maintain progress. Saw to length and split off the moist outer to get to the larger, dry inner-sections - batonning may not necessarily be done...
 
I dont know exactly what you mean by processing wood but hey I will take a crack at this one.

Ive been a bushman and a hunter for my whole life, I have never needed to batton wood ever, but I do believe it has its place. What I do is forage around for smaller wood and amass it in a pile, for the bigger stuff that cant just be broken I saw about halfway through the diameter of the wood or chop it half way with a hatchet. I then use a forked tree to snap the wood at the cuts, or I just lean it up against a bank or a log and stomp it. for even bigger stuff I cut in to in from each side with a hachet or saw (from the bottom and the top) and do the same as above. I find tho for camping you dont need massive logs, wood no thicker than my wrist is perfect for cooking and warmth and requires little effort to prepare.

hope this helps
 
readyme said:
I guys, I am trying to expand my knowledge for wood processing.
I want your opinions on the best way to process wood with a folding hand saw and a 4.25" blade knife (Bark River Bravo 1).
I used to simply baton almost anything when I had a 10" blade, but I want to carry less.

1. I could simply saw everything, but that is amazingly inefficient.
2. Only baton small pieces.
3. Start a crack and use a hand carved wood wedge.

Any help would be great.
Click to expand...

If you have a quality folding saw, you have all you need right there to process any wood, without needing a knife or splitting tool. Take your wood, and once you cut it to a length, saw 12 inches or whatever, then use the saw to split it.

Saw halfway through the piece of wood, and no more. Then hold the wood with the saw cut facing down, and strike on a rock or log. THe wood will split down the length along the grain pattern neat as you please. No fuss no muss. Once you have the wood split in half, then cut again halfway through, and bang it again. You will then have quartered the piece of firewood, getting at any dry wood if it had ben wet on the outside. There is absolutely no need to baton, unless you just want to beat on your knife. Not a good idea in a survival situation. A saw is a outdoors mans best friend. It's quiet, safe, can be done with one arm out of action due to an injury, and does not waste calories if food is low.

In fact, with a good saw like a Silky or Opinel, or Fiskars, you'll only need a ask in your pocket for the odd little fine cutting. Of course being a knife knut, we just take an excess of knives along to play with. In fact, you could make do in the boonies with a Victorinox farmer if you know what your doing.

A saw and a good sheath knife with a wish inch blade will be all you really need. Theres plenty of U tube videos that show how to split wood with a folding saw. Once you try it, you'll be a saw convert.

Carl.
 
wyattT said:
use smaller pieces of wood. no battoning needed. a cooking or fire for warmth doesn't need 8" rounds to work
Click to expand...

Nailed it, honestly the the last thing i batonned for was while making a spoon, haven`t had to split wood for a fire in a while...
 
A few people above me have mentioned it already but really when you are out in the woods there's not need to process larger pieces of wood. I generally only use branches or small trees with the same diameter as my forearm. I know they can take my weight if I'm to use it for making a bed or shelter. For fire again I do not need big diameter logs.

I will say if you want a bigger log then fine, use your saw to cut them to 6ft lengths or as long/big as you feel comfortable carrying back to your fire. Then simply put one end in the fire and let it burn that way.

I like to try and be efficient when in the woods and felling big trees doesn't fall into that way of thinking.
 
Thanks for all the quick responses guys...I knew I could count on you.
I have been researching saws online and it seems everyone has a Bahco...but a lot of people mention Silky. I will have to find out more about Silky saws.
 
readyme said:
I used to simply baton almost anything when I had a 10" blade, but I want to carry less.
Click to expand...

I hear you. I have a little orange gripped ESEE 4 coming in and that will be my latest experiment. I feel that I'm going to make some cutting tool changes this winter. One change may be getting a really good hatchet and tossing my hawks.
 
Upnorth, I've been playing with hatchets over the last 3 weeks since I've been home-I refurbished a picture perfect Norlund and a nice old Sandvik 1 1/4 head. Personally, for processing firewood, I don't find them quite as efficient as say, a machete, or a tomahawk with a light head and an 18 or 19 inch haft. I'd recommend a 20" size axe or better, just based on personal experience. Can they split and buck? Sure, but I don't think they're quite as controllable and precise in general as a tomahawk, and they don't seem to split or bite as deep. Could just be the super healthy, frozen hardwoods around here.

Readyme, you won't go wrong with either, or a Fiskars Woodzig. All three are professionally designed and built, and operate professionally as well. I've found replacement blades for all three as well. Little subtleties in design for each, but at that point it's all personal preference.

Here is the IaWoodsman video I was talking about. Great demos and easy enough to learn on your own-just don't hurt yourself in the process. The Bravo1 would laugh at that kind of punishment, but if you're worried about abusing your knife, just get an axe...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_ZZj-5A9u0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-WuP-xYlnc
 
PayetteRucker said:
Upnorth, I've been playing with hatchets over the last 3 weeks since I've been home-I refurbished a picture perfect Norlund and a nice old Sandvik 1 1/4 head. Personally, for processing firewood, I don't find them quite as efficient as say, a machete, or a tomahawk with a light head and an 18 or 19 inch haft. I'd recommend a 20" size axe or better, just based on personal experience. Can they split and buck? Sure, but I don't think they're quite as controllable and precise in general as a tomahawk, and they don't seem to split or bite as deep. Could just be the super healthy, frozen hardwoods around here.
Click to expand...

I always had the hawks on day trips or weekend camping in the north. They were ok for splitting kindling etc to start a fire but I found that I had to get my heavy axe out to process serious fire logs. Buddy, I'm just not comfortable with an axe because of the potential damage to my foot\leg in a remote spot (fear). This is another reason why I liked a lighter hawk. Much less mass\inertia from a glancing blow. I am still interested in a nice G.B. or whatever hatchet as it would be roughly the same mass\size as an old belt axe, and those fur traders lived with these tools daily. I think that I'm more comfortable with packing a saw as opposed to an axe. I know that either of my hawks could limb a tree easily for a shelter, so that is covered. Heavier wood processing if needed would be with a saw. Leaving me needing only a small to med. knife. This is kind of were I'm at now, subject to change Lord knows. I am always interested in different opinions\experiences because I sure don't know it all and learn from others here.
;) :thumbup:
I'm going to take my hawks out soon and see what I can do with them, it's been a year or two.
 
Processing wood in the woods is too much calorie burn. Break it or burn it into smaller pieces. For making kindling, tinder, etc to start a fire, 4" is plenty.

You can process wood with a sharp rock tied to a stick if you have to...
 
Knifes are for cutting , AFAIC.

Saw wins, even when it´s wet.

[video=youtube;kFKzvWDeiFc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFKzvWDeiFc&feature=related[/video]

That video should stop the "batoningning" ! :D;):D;)

1234,,,,,,:D
 
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