Should a Knife Hold Up Under Batoning?

Great article. Thanks, m-m-motorcycle (I think I'm stuttering!)

Anyway, one of the more fascinating quotes is: "...when a break does occur it’s
not on the first couple of blows but rather after having done it for a while. The make or quality of the knife doesn’t seem to matter as I have broken some very good knives doing this. These failures seem to occur without warning or reason."

This leaves me wondering, is the damage to the knife cumulative? Does the pounding put stresses on a knife that can prematurely cause it to fail? My guess is that it wouldn't because of steel's flexability, but that's just a guess. I also know that the handle should never be below the spine. It's difficult to imagine a Cold Steel Recon Tanto snapping easily. At any rate, thanks for the responses.

Oh, and regarding folders, did I understand correctly that the locking mechanism be totally disengaged?
 
batoning is a no-no with a folding knife...

batoning with a fixed blade can be done if the fixed blade is stout enough and properly heat treated AND IF THE BATON IS MADE OF WOOD OR RUBBER, ANYTHING BUT STEEL AS THAT IS ABUSE.
 
If you are going to baton with your folding knife, you should do it with the lock completely disengaged. The reasoning is that as you hit the blade with the baton, the blade is allowed to pivot relative to the handle of the knife. This minimizes stress at the pivot and helps prevent damage at the handle/blade junction.

Should you be able to baton a knife? That depends on the knife.

Is a knife better than a hatchet for chopping wood? That depends on the knife and the wood. I prefer a hatchet or an axe for large diameter wood, as an axe (with its small cutting face) takes the same sized bite every time on logs of a diameter larger than its cutting face. Conversely, the bite if a knife gets progressively smaller as the log increases in diameter, because more of the knife edge comes in contact with the wood, and it takes more force to drive the knife into the wood as the knife-wood interface becomes larger. I prefer a large knife for chopping small diameter wood, as a knife is much more forgiving than an axe in terms of placement on a small target (it is easier to miss a small log with an axe than it is with a large knife).

For me it helps to think in terms of extremes: I would not want to chop down a large tree with a machete, nor would I want to attack french rose hedge with an axe. Everything in between is a trade off of some sort.

For what it is worth, my dogfather is lighter than many hatchets and benefits from a greater blade length per unit weight ratio as well.
 
I have even batonned a SAK many times before the blade got loose and it's still serviceable.
 
Well batoning as I understand it is done correctly when you hit the spine of the knife directly above the area of the blade that is in contact with the material you are batoning the knife through. So, with the lock disengaged you are really not putting much force on what most consider to be the weakest part of a folder, the lock.
 
I guess I was wondering what you do if/when the full width of the blade is hammered into the wood and it still hasn't split. At that point, you can't hit the spine. The only thing to hit would be the tip sticking out the side of the branch. I'd be worried about hitting that tip. If the branch splits before you get that far, then it isn't an issue.
 
I have not encountered such a situation thus far. I figure at that point it'd be wiser to grab a nice hefty fixed blade like my Ranger Shank or maybe a wood saw.
 
Once you get to the point that the knife is completely within the wood and it has not split, you back it out, whittle some wooden wedges and then pound them into the crack you made with the knife. You really can't abuse a wooded wedge. Okay you can, but who cares, whittle another one. Preferably you would have whittled several before the batoning began. Preparation and forethought.

Remember, measure once and cut twice. Or is it the other way around. Dang it, I've cut this board three times... and it's still too short.
 
IMO If a fixed-blade is designed for survival then it should stand up to batoning. Batoning with a folder is abuse to me. Unless of course the folder is designed for it.
 
The idea of batoning a knife is to give you the ability to split wood even in the absence of a hatchet. As far as I know, you can baton with almost any knife. It is a matter of physics (stress, force and angles). So as long as you use the right force and angles depending on the knife and the material been split, you control the stress on the knife and it should baton fine. That's why technique is so important to batoning.
 
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