Use your head, not your knife!

I must be missing out. I have camped a lot for 60 years and I have not batoned a darn thing. Shame on me.:D
 
I'm not qualified to talk about batoning. In So Cal dry wood is never hard to find. I never heard of batoning until I started reading here.
 
I can only imagine batoning for shits and giggles... but there are desert regions where you may not find adequate kindleing... Places that freeze seasonally, where the grass is 2ft under ice, and wet if/where available. Personally, I avoid camping in these places, but I have nutty friends who go to Patagonia to summit 22,000 ft. mountains! For discussion's sake, we'll imagine a private plane crash... or Heli-skiing gone bad.. or destroying your boat in the lower canyons of the Rio Grande...that's a ten day trek in the Chihuahua Desert. ...or am I the only one who puts himself in these situations??? :D:D:D

LOVIN' the light air in this here thread! hoo hoo hoo hee hee hee haa haa haa...
 
I have batoned plenty of times. I would not use a folder for Batoning. Any decent quality fixed blade knife can be used for batoning with no damage. The exception would be excessively thin and pointy tipped knives like my Spyderco Ronin. . . but that is no camp knife.

Making kindling is probably the most common use for batoning. . . you could chop kindling with an axe or hatchet, but batoning is usually easier and safer.

Batoning is nothing new.
 
ADAPT, IMPROVISE, OVERCOME!

I've used saran wrap for pressure dressings, 2 lengths of tin foil rolled up like a wire to jump start my truck int he boonies, a car battery, jumper cables and shreddd up car seat to start a fire during a blizzard where i got stuck in 6 foot drifts, and my truck rack as a bridge across a too deep stream (removed the heavy steel rack, placed it into the stream, used the ax to fell tree and limb them, made a "bridge" witht he logs and the truck rack. Took about 6 hours but i made it.

duct tape is great but TUCK tape is better, a tub of t part epoxy putty will fix lots on the truck, plus its flammable as hell.

ATF poured onto a hot fire makes a HUGE smoke cloud, grate for signalling.
 
The last time the ATF introduced fire to a large structure it was in Waco TX. ;)
 
Rat Finkenstein said:
I have batoned plenty of times. I would not use a folder for Batoning. Any decent quality fixed blade knife can be used for batoning with no damage. The exception would be excessively thin and pointy tipped knives like my Spyderco Ronin. . . but that is no camp knife.

Making kindling is probably the most common use for batoning. . . you could chop kindling with an axe or hatchet, but batoning is usually easier and safer.

Batoning is nothing new.
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This is actually a great response. I 'baton' in this manner often. I also use my fixed blades like draw knives and in a hundred other ways like most here.

However, what I've seen passed off as batoning usually involves *log-splitting* (like a 4" log, using a 2" club to beat a fixed blade through it) and not what would be a typical or even common practice in the real world (in my opinion of course).

Thanks for your response...
 
Mongrel said:
This is actually a great response. I 'baton' in this manner often. I also use my fixed blades like draw knives and in a hundred other ways like most here.

However, what I've seen passed off as batoning usually involves *log-splitting* (like a 4" log, using a 2" club to beat a fixed blade through it) and not what would be a typical or even common practice in the real world (in my opinion of course).

Thanks for your response...
Click to expand...

Log splitting is ok too, you just have to use the right (size) knife for the job. 4 inches is not too big a stick. If you're using a small-ish knife, you have to stick to smaller diameters or work your way around the outside. Also, if the wood is wet, splitting it helps it burn by exposing the dry interior. Once the fire is going, splitting is unnecessary unless it is very damp.

Let's face it. We are on a knife forum, and most videos of batoning you see (all, really) are knife knuts out playing with their knives and seeing what they can do. Nothing wrong with that. :thumbup:

If a fixed blade knife breaks while batoning, something was wrong with the knife (exceptions would be delicate high hardness/ thin tipped cutters- but then you are a fool for pounding on it). Hopefully, if it's going to break, it breaks while you are playing in the back yard- test your equipment before depending on it.
 
Bushman5 said:
ADAPT, IMPROVISE, OVERCOME!

I've used saran wrap for pressure dressings, 2 lengths of tin foil rolled up like a wire to jump start my truck int he boonies, a car battery, jumper cables and shreddd up car seat to start a fire during a blizzard where i got stuck in 6 foot drifts, and my truck rack as a bridge across a too deep stream (removed the heavy steel rack, placed it into the stream, used the ax to fell tree and limb them, made a "bridge" witht he logs and the truck rack. Took about 6 hours but i made it.

duct tape is great but TUCK tape is better, a tub of t part epoxy putty will fix lots on the truck, plus its flammable as hell.

ATF poured onto a hot fire makes a HUGE smoke cloud, grate for signalling.
Click to expand...

Are you a big Les Stroud fan?
 
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A 12ga shotgun with 3' mag buckshot will also split wood really good. I like to use my knives for cutting. Now thats using your head. As far as big fires. Burn baby burn!
 
rick43t3 said:
A 12ga shotgun with 3' mag buckshot will also split wood really good. I like to use my knives for cutting. Now thats using your head. As far as big fires. Burn baby burn!
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1. No, it won't.

2. Knowing what the word cut means is using your head. . . Splitting is cutting.
 
Rat Finkenstein said:
1. No, it won't.

2. Knowing what the word cut means is using your head. . . Splitting is cutting.
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I must voice my opinion and say that this statement is incorrect. Splitting involves forcing a single piece to become more than one piece by means of pressure exceeding the structural tolerance of said piece, thus rendering the single piece a random collection comprising of several pieces. Cutting leaves the integrity of the piece intact, but instead removes selected parts in a controlled fashion. Put a lit M80 in your Sunday ham and it splits the meat quite well, but a knife, on the other hand, will cut the ham in a managable manner. Perhaps the term you were going for was "paring"? Not sure, but let it be known that splitting and cutting are two very different things.
 
The REAL Commander said:
I must voice my opinion and say that this statement is incorrect. Splitting involves forcing a single piece to become more than one piece by means of pressure exceeding the structural tolerance of said piece, thus rendering the single piece a random collection comprising of several pieces. Cutting leaves the integrity of the piece intact, but instead removes selected parts in a controlled fashion. Put a lit M80 in your Sunday ham and it splits the meat quite well, but a knife, on the other hand, will cut the ham in a managable manner. Perhaps the term you were going for was "paring"? Not sure, but let it be known that splitting and cutting are two very different things.
Click to expand...

Since you don't know what the word "Cut" means, I suggest you look it up in a dictionary.
 
yoopernauts™;6056018 said:
Are you a big Les Stroud fan? I don't know if this counts but I once cut logs while sitting down.:D

2e7a71f846253e92ba407a89fd611230.jpg
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who? Les Stroud? i dont get my wilderness education/skills from the TV, i get them them from my elders and by going into the woods and practising regulalrly.

just saying.

logs?
 
Ebbtide said:
OK archie, just for you, I broke out the old "Spot the knife" quiz photo :D
findknife.gif

Careful, it's tricky.
;)
:D
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Too funny.


Who knew that knives are primarily SLICING instruments?
What a concept!

We all must remember however, that there is a new generation of boys out there that think a knife is for abusing. They have no critical thinking skills that would allow them to improvise in an emergency situation. To them, a knife is the only option and it must be capable of chopping cinderblock, (why don’t they test on real rocks like granite?), being hammer through steel and prying engine blocks out of cars.

Why make a fire out of small kindling when you can hack down a tree, split the wood and create a bonfire? Let’s Chop!!!

A small lean-to made with a leatherman out of small branches? No way! They’re going to make a Fort Ticonderoga!

They are too stupid to survive with a knife of any size anyway.

I have a large ‘heavy use’ knife. I can do a lot with it. It is as tough as they come. But I don’t need it to survive. My Fallkniven WM1 will work just fine.

But then, I know how to use my head as well as a knife.
 
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