What's the latest bushcrafty term for this "technique"?

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fmajor007

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Apr 1, 2010
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I've noticed a trend wherein various skills/techniques which have been practiced for decades have been given a new name. For example, splitting kindling wood using a knife is now called "Batonning". In my neck 'o the woods, it was just making kindling (with whatever tool you had at the time - hatchet, "camp" axe, Bowie knife, whatever).

So, what do folks call cutting thicker wood (standing or fallen) with a knife using a baton (aside from "stupid", "inappropriate use of a knife", "you need an axe for that", etc)? IIRC, the technique/skill used to be truncating, but that's digging pretty deep into my memory.

Here are some pics to illustrate what i'm trying to describe:

Untouched, dead, prepared Oak tree:
18June2012Tree-To-Be-Cut-Down.jpg


Selected tools:
My Bryan Breeden "Truth" knife - 6" blade 5" handle of 1/4" 0-1 stock (with Bryan's masterful heat treatment) featuring a high-sabre/convex grind and scary-sharp edge and an Oak baton and the initial "workings"
18June2012BatoninginProgressII.jpg


Final result after some ferocious baton-work (inside the outer mushy covering is hard, dry/seasoned red oak):
18June2012BatonChoppingFINISHEDI.jpg


and a little bit of fun before i batonned through the remaining trunk to the ground:
18June2012FinalBaton.jpg


So, aside from idiocy (or other negative expletives), is there a proper name for this "technique"?!?
 
I still call it batoning, but think of it as "axe-cut batoning", because you're cutting instead of splitting. On harder, or larger diameter wood that a small notch won't make easy to break in a short time, I call it "an exercise in futility", because of the amount of work involved for the results you get:p
 
I would say this is still batonning since you're using a baton, but I'm a stickler for semantics, so I wouldn't agree with this:

splitting kindling wood using a knife is now called "Batonning".
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I think it's called batonning because you're using a baton to drive the knife through the wood, not because you're splitting kindling wood using a knife. Otherwise it'd be called splitting-kindling-wood-using-a-knifing. But I'm also aware people like to use not totally correct "shortcut names" to label stuff as well :foot:
 
i think that's called a "showing how tough my new knife is" technique :D
 
Yep, I call it cross grain batoning. Although I usually just chop instead of cross grain batoning.
 
uyotg said:
I would say this is still batonning since you're using a baton, but I'm a stickler for semantics, so I wouldn't agree with this:



I think it's called batonning because you're using a baton to drive the knife through the wood, not because you're splitting kindling wood using a knife. Otherwise it'd be called splitting-kindling-wood-using-a-knifing. But I'm also aware people like to use not totally correct "shortcut names" to label stuff as well :foot:
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Too funny!!! THough i should clarify a bit - when i've used a knife in splitting up kindling i use either my hand on the spine of the knife *or* any 'ol stick/log section (technically a baton) within reach to smack the knife through the chunk being split.
 
JV3 said:
i think that's called a "showing how tough my new knife is" technique :D
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Well, that's always part of it isn't it? :D Kinda like kindergarten "Show-n-Tell" days - boys n their toys!!!

Anyway, the frequent re-assigning of nomenclature to pre-existent skills/techniques is really interesting - particularly in innovative, faced-paced cultures like ours (at least from a cultural anthropological stand point anyway) .

So far, chisel-cutting, cross-cut batonning and plain 'ol felling all sound appropriate.
 
fmajor007 said:
Too funny!!! THough i should clarify a bit - when i've used a knife in splitting up kindling i use either my hand on the spine of the knife *or* any 'ol stick/log section (technically a baton) within reach to smack the knife through the chunk being split.
Click to expand...

Good point. Even if you're using your hand as the "baton," it's not technically a baton, but it might still be called batonning. Like you said, this technique has been around and we only decided to just give it a casual, unofficial name. We still can't agree on a precise definition of a choil here, much less how to pronounce it :confused: :D
 
That is called chipping out a piece of wood and then doing it all over a gain untill you have chipped away enough wood untill your are through the piece you chipping:D. Yea yea that is it CHIPPING That is a new Breeden Bushcraft Term and I am telling the Truth;) Get it Frank Truth ? LOL LOL LOL.

Love the knife pics too:thumbup:.

Bryan
 
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