To baton or not to baton

In my opinion I would not want to buy a knife that I could not baton. If it breaks then the knife is a POS.

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Jason B. Stout Model 2 Tactical Knife
D2, 3/16", Hollow Ground, Nickel Silver Guard, Green Canvas Micarta with Loveless Bolts.
 
kgd said:
Do you want fire or not? Who gives a crap about the knife. The knife isn't important, the goal is. People think knives are gods around here. They are just a hunk of steel. Personally, I use what I have to achieve the goals I need to achieve. You accidentally break a tool so what. You break a symbol and you fall apart into a puddle of jelly. Probably don't need that knife to break apart the wood anyhow. Batoning never bothered me. But then again, I don't whisper sweet nothings to my blades either.
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Apparently someone forgot that this is BLADE forums. Sorry someone pissed in your Cheerios this morning. I hate it when that happens.
 
stabman said:
Yeah, I kinda figured that.;)
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Sorry I mistook your humor. It is frustrating hearing over and over that one should not baton a knife. One thing that does make my skin crawl is seeing someone baton a knife with a rock. I have seen Les & Bear do it on tv. Someone did it in one of Cody Lundin's survival classes even after he said not to use a rock as a baton.
 
Stitch said:
One thing that does make my skin crawl is seeing someone baton a knife with a rock.
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For sure.
If there's wood to be batonned, then there's, well, wood around, which can be used as a baton.:)
 
I've assured that I will NEVER need to baton with my knife: I always take Chuck Norris into the woods with me.
 
jimh0220 said:
Apparently someone forgot that this is BLADE forums. Sorry someone pissed in your Cheerios this morning. I hate it when that happens.
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Nope, I didn`t forget one whip. People in bladeforums who read WILDERNESS & SURVIVAL SKILLS need to be reminded that the glittery glam piece they wear on their belt in $120 leather pants actually has a purpose other than to show to their forum buddies via high resolution picture with the color tweaked just so for them to go `ooooh, ahhh, sparkly`.

Even more so since Outdoors Gear was separated from W&SS!

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: for that move by Bladeforums. I think the upper admin. knew exactly what they were doing when them made that change! It was a great call!
 
kgd said:
People in bladeforums who read WILDERNESS & SURVIVAL SKILLS need to be reminded that the glittery glam piece they wear on their belt in $120 leather pants actually has a purpose other than to show to their forum buddies via high resolution picture with the color tweaked just so for them to go `ooooh, ahhh, sparkly`.
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What, knives can be used?:eek:
 
kgd said:
nope, i didn`t forget one whip. People in bladeforums who read wilderness & survival skills need to be reminded that the glittery glam piece they wear on their belt in $120 leather pants actually has a purpose other than to show to their forum buddies via high resolution picture with the color tweaked just so for them to go `ooooh, ahhh, sparkly`.

Even more so since outdoors gear was separated from w&ss!

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: For that move by bladeforums. I think the upper admin. Knew exactly what they were doing when them made that change! It was a great call!
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well said!!!!!!
 
kgd said:
Do you want fire or not? Who gives a crap about the knife. The knife isn't important, the goal is. People think knives are gods around here. They are just a hunk of steel. Personally, I use what I have to achieve the goals I need to achieve. You accidentally break a tool so what. You break a symbol and you fall apart into a puddle of jelly. Probably don't need that knife to break apart the wood anyhow. Batoning never bothered me. But then again, I don't whisper sweet nothings to my blades either.
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Well said. If we're talking true survival, instead of the hobby of survival, and hypothermia or freezing is setting in, then fire trumps an intact knife. What's the good of having that pristine knife in the morning as it hangs on the belt of a frozen corpse?

Plus, lest we forget, when our knife breaks, we still have sharp handheld cutting tools, only one step backwards, like our ancestors with chunks of flint. When it's nut cutting time, survival is about getting your body back to civilization, not your tools.
 
I guess a broken knife matters little if you break it after you have the fire going ... thats not really gunna be the case usualy tho , that you finish batoning , and are sitting down warming ya toes and ping , your knife breaks , but hey you got fire ...

itll more likely be the case it breaks while you are hammering on it making the wood smaller ... before you finish the job or have your fire alight

having a couple bits of broken blade can present more risk in a survival situation , at least till you get the snapped bits made smoother , cut fingers get infected fast and swell up , get stiff , leak puss and get painful to use ... not what you want ideally when you allready got problems to deal with

that is assuming youre survivng more than a dunk in a creek and a cold overnight stop out anyway ...
 
I batoned my ESEE-4 yesterday to get a fie going in the woods.It had been raining hard for 2 days so everything was soaked.I batoned some 2" softwoods to get at the drier wood inside so my burning tinder had something to catch.
Baton within reason.
 
Myal said:
I guess a broken knife matters little if you break it after you have the fire going ... thats not really gunna be the case usualy tho , that you finish batoning , and are sitting down warming ya toes and ping , your knife breaks , but hey you got fire ...

itll more likely be the case it breaks while you are hammering on it making the wood smaller ... before you finish the job or have your fire alight

having a couple bits of broken blade can present more risk in a survival situation , at least till you get the snapped bits made smoother , cut fingers get infected fast and swell up , get stiff , leak puss and get painful to use ... not what you want ideally when you allready got problems to deal with

that is assuming youre survivng more than a dunk in a creek and a cold overnight stop out anyway ...
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But this is queer logic. You are thinking about problems down the line that don't exist and have taken this deterministic leap frogging set of events and try to couple them into a risk framework that simply doesn't work. By the logic here it goes: A) I need fire goes to B) I try to baton goes to C) knife breaks goes to D) try to use fragment goes to E) cut finger goes to F) gangrene sets in goes to G) can't cut off gangrene finger because broken knife is too small goes to H) which............WAIT A MINUTE, I DIED AT B when I couldn't get the fire going.

In the above scenario are you going to blame the death on batoning? No, the death occurs because the fire couldn't get started. So in this twisted screwed up mindset the argument has set a priority of protecting the knife which I'll reiterate is a symbol rather than protecting the person which is the actual goal of a survival situation. The leap frogging mentality is wrong because it focuses on a secondary or tertiary threat rather than the immediate one. It goes against the rules of 3. You have a priority situation - address it then move on to the next priority. If you forgo batoning because of fear of your knife breaking, what you are trying to do is preserve your tool for the potential issues that will come later down the road. However, in making that choice you have immediately compromised your ability to deal with the priority threat you are immediately facing.

Now, does this mean you have to baton to get fire? No it doesn't. You may have many options to get a fire going. Those options may be limited due to the environment you are in or do to your own physical capacity under the scenario. Batoning is one way out of many to get wood and in some circumstances it can be a highly efficient way to do so. You choose the best way to make a fire based on the circumstances you find yourself in. The goal however is to address the priority in a quick and safe manner. Again, just to pound it into peoples skulls, by safe I don't mean safety to your knife, I mean safety to yourself.

To Myal, yes I agree that its harder to use a broken knife than an intact one. I would use extra precaution if I had to use broken pieces of a knife. I would have to re-evaluate my approach to getting the fire starting. I might use a piece of the blade and try shaving off the bark and wood. I might just skip the tool and start whacking wood against the tree. I would spend my remaining effort trying to get fire which is my priority. Would I roll up into a little ball and simply die because my knife broke? By the comments that get posted so often I think many people might just do that!
 
I understand I could buy full tang knives and know the knives will be strong enough, but I want use the knives I already have.

The question for me is if I can baton with the knives I have that are not full tang, and not have them break.
 
neeman said:
I understand I could buy full tang knives and know the knives will be strong enough, but I want use the knives I already have.

The question for me is if I can baton with the knives I have that are not full tang, and not have them break.
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I posted some photos of a Mora Clipper being used to baton in this thread and the Clipper is well known for sporting a small tang.......Everything in moderation though.
 
"The question for me is if I can baton with the knives I have that are not full tang, and not have them break."

I had the same question. I've tried batoning with half a dozen Mora knives. None of them have a full tang. They have blades that are .10" thick. They all worked. But, I kept the wood thickness to 2" or less. I avoided large knots. I was very careful to keep the wood off the bolster. I was very careful to hit straight down on the back of the blade. I batoned with the grain. I wore eye protection when I did it. None of them failed. I feel comfortable taking any one of them into the woods as my primary knife.

Practice with your knives. Wear eye protection. If you don't feel comfortable using them for batoning get a good full tang knife.
 
Sorry KGD, with great respect I respectfully disagree with your post. You break the only knife (assuming you are in a situ with only one knife), and your hooped. Knives DO break during batoning..........some do some dont, even those that are designed for abuse do to.....its called fatigue failure......impact steel over and over at some point it will fail, in our case perhaps at the worst time of all, when we really need to rely on our secondary survival tool (knife, primary being our brain).

The knife IS IMPORTANT to us, it gives us a means to MAKE other tools, make our lives easier, make tasks quicker, etc etc etc, not just fire.

"whisper sweet nothings to our knives" ??? really? :jerkit: seriously? I hope thats the Maker Marks 12 year old whiskey talking........no one does that here....wow.....

"Originally Posted by kgd
Do you want fire or not? Who gives a crap about the knife. The knife isn't important, the goal is. People think knives are gods around here. They are just a hunk of steel. Personally, I use what I have to achieve the goals I need to achieve. You accidentally break a tool so what. You break a symbol and you fall apart into a puddle of jelly. Probably don't need that knife to break apart the wood anyhow. Batoning never bothered me. But then again, I don't whisper sweet nothings to my blades either."
 
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