Why Battoning?

J

Jim malone

Joined
May 25, 2007
Messages
1,157
Battoning with a knife seems to be a last resort to cut wood to get firewood in the wild. Now, the last time i was in the woods i saw numerous dead trees with hanging dead branches and dead wood on the ground. While not as sufficient as a nice log for a fire , it seems strange to use an object NOT intended for splitting wood to split wood.
I have never seen an axe with a 3 mm thick blade, and it would quickly deform or break if you used one.
So why keep on insisting to batton wood. I have seen numerous threads where someone is disappointed because his favourite camp knife broke when he tried to pound it thrue a tree log.....
Why do they keep trying this, especially with a knife you intend to use as a knife later?
When you chop wood with a splitting maul you see that the wood splits along the grain and that it is never a clean straight cut thrue.
Enormous forces are placed on the blade if you try to pound your knife thrue wood. So why in the world would you try it, unless you are in a survival situation?
You could easely make a star shapped fire with dead branches, and fallen tress, burn thru the tree to "cut it".
Mors Kochanski mentions battoning in his book. But only GREEN trees that can be bend with one arm, not seasoned logs.
 
I don't baton a log but I do baton smaller pieces to get the fire going quicker. I find it easier to make small strips of wood that way.
 
To me the primary reasons for batoning are to facilitate fire starting under adverse weather conditions. I do it to reach the resinous heart of fatwood and the dryer insides of of a dead hardwood limbs (not really logs) for tinder and initial fuels. The secondary reason I do it is to ensure a knife is capable of doing it should the need arise. Doing so under controlled conditions before the need actually arises.

.
 
Last edited:
This is like so many things...

Each side looks at the other and wonders, until some point, when they fall back on...

"For those who understand no explanation is needed, ...For those who don't none will do". - Jerry Lewis



I baton, and it works, and as long as you keep your wits about you, it works well.

There was a really long thread, which you might like to read...

"Batoning, what is the controversy?" - http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=662387

I started the thread, coming from the other side...

Here is a quote of what I said, my summary....



Marion David Poff said:
Well...

I still don't see the controversy....

I understand that there are those who think the practice is abusive, and I guess I would agree with them, with the caveat that anything can be abusive, if done excessively.

And I agree that some people claim that they are batoning, when really they are just whacking the crap out of a knife with a big stick.

I would say that there is such a thing as proper batoning technique. That, knowing the limitations of the tools at hand, and the range of resistance and stress likely given the wood to be split or cut, one can properly apply the technique of batoning to accomplish their goal.

I do think that batoning a bolt is appropriate. When I go out, I often bolt a tree with a saw, and I will then select bolts that fit my tools, to split them, and make the structural members for the my fire lay, then, I will split the rest of the bolts, so that they will more easily take fire.

Have I damaged a knife this way, yes. I bent a Cold Steel Bushman, but it was my fault, the bolt of wood was too big, my mistake. But, the other side of that coin is that I decided I wanted a knife that was capable of batoning that size of wood, and discontinued using the Bushman (though there were other factors involved).

Usually now, I attack the bolts with my Bill Siegle Cutlass, which is sufficiently thick and strong to handle the task.

cutlassfriend_c_1700.jpg


Improper Batoning Technique would be using The Cutlass's friend to try and split a bolt....
Click to expand...



Best,
Marion
 
Last edited:
Hi Jim -

Marion kinda hit it on the head so-to-speak.

BTW, i'd be thinking alot about batoning w/ 3mm blade thickness - though emergency dictates measures... Batoning w/a 3mm blade is risky b/c knife/blade damage potential is higher with thinner blades as well as premature retirement of your baton. Bad juju.

Incidently, batoning, as *generally* understood, is not cutting wood in a cross-grain orientation: Rather *splitting* the wood with the direction of grain.

For all the nit-picky, small-brain b*$tards who ocassionally show up and need to show off their ocean of knowledge to "correct" others, a "baton" is a tube/stick/pipe/club/rod which may or may not be hollow. I am among them :o. Now they may feel free to google a more exact definition, but i suspect Jim has a fair bit more gray-matter to than that and can reasonably interpret what the bladeforum/wss community means by "batoning".

For wss purposes, a baton (read log/stick/branch/etc) is used to impact another object - chiefly our knife - to get at the dry wood inside the damp outer range of a given log/branch/stick.

Batoning is definitely a skill in and of itself, but not rocket science (like flint knapping - that's the "deep end of the pool" for me). If you've ever split wood in a *controlled* manner, batoning uses the same principles - emphasis on control!!!! It's main and greatest benefit is getting at dry wood to make tinder and a healthy start to your fire - particularly in damp/wet/snowy conditions.

Once a healthy fire is rocking, than yea, a "star-burst" log-feed requires less energy than cutting/sawing/chopping, but ya gotta get it started 1st!
 
You probably know all this anyway, but i found a nifty video of batoning with a Trailmaster - a good example of a batonning-grade blade. This guy does it "right" - notice he put the wood being batoned on another piece of wood so his edge won't hit the dirt. The batoning starts about 2:45 secs into the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2rtkheMo2I

Arguably the logs in the video probably don't need to be split (they're dry/small enough already), but it's a good demonstration all the same. Note that the ends of the log he is batoning are clean-cuts illustrating that he used a saw to "cut" the wood.

I don't know how to do the embedding thing, but the link will get you there.
 
I've used it a couple of times where I really needed to split some wet would (everything was wet!). I just needed to get the inner dry kindling out of the logs...after your fire is going, it's less of a concern. I make my son batton as I think it's safer on smaller wood than an axe (when he was younger and didn't posses the proper motor skills to control an axe). Battoning isn't a necessary skill, but I still think a good outdoors knife should be able to handle it (again, not massive, knotted, seasoned wood) within reason and it's a good technique to at least understand how to implement even if you don't use it.

ROCK6
 
I've done it in winter to get at the insides of snow covered wood. It worked well. I don't baton as much during the dry summer months. I do not beat on smaller knives just to see if they can take batonning-that seems pointless to me.
 
I use it often enough..it handy to get to dry wood after an intense downpour..or an extended period of time where most of the usable wood has been covered by snow....
I also utilize it to fashion implements... hearth for a bowdrill set for example..I don;t carry an axe much any more.. so I use the technique when I need to...
 
three reasons 'why' come to mind.

A: it is a good test of the toughness of a blade

B: it might be necessary for your survival, and in that case, you want a tough blade.

C: hey, it's fun :)
 
Mannlicher said:
three reasons 'why' come to mind.

A: it is a good test of the toughness of a blade

B: it might be necessary for your survival, and in that case, you want a tough blade.

C: hey, it's fun :)
Click to expand...

Do they *have* to be in that exact order? :D

I'd go with the "C: hey, it's fun" option 1st!
 
To get back to the original question.
Why baton?
Why not, I suppose.
Well, coming from another part of the world (Southern Africa) where I’ve never experienced anybody batonning wood (and we do make a lot of fires down there) this is a whole new experience for me. In fact, I would have no hesitation in saying that if you were to attempt to baton before any South African outdoorsman they would consider you to be “just another crazy American who forgot to bring the right tools”. If we need smaller pieces of wood than that given up by nature then we use saws, choppers or axes. Knives are used for cutting. If we need to hack down anything not suitable for chopping, like sugar cane or thick grass, then we use a panga (which is the local term for a machete). If we hunt really large game like giraffe or elephant then we also do not baton our knives through the large joints. We plan ahead and bring along a chopper and saw for this task. Admittedly, in many areas the wood we use for keeping our fires going is dry and hard, so batonning would probably result in a broken knife. In some areas like Mozambique, Angola or Zambia where the wood may be softer you might be able to baton, but, frankly, I’d still rather use the right tool for the job. For emergency use batonning may be understandable, but as the OP said, just burn the whole branch/tree.
Try batonning with any knife of mine and you’re likely to get a log across the head and you’ll definitely be sleeping outside the tent for the rest of the trip. Good luck with the hyenas.
I’d be interested in what forumites from other parts of the world have to say on the matter. Any Australians here? Cousins in the UK perhaps? Fairer brothers from the Nordics? Phillipinos for that matter?
 
Batonning is a valuable technique for certain situations and for making tools. If you've ever spent time in a rainforest or cloud forest then you'll understand how important batonning sometimes is. I've been in jungles where everything was so wet for so long that I wouldn't have been able to get a fire going otherwise. It's also useful for cutting up bigger pieces of wood to get to the heart to reduce it to matchstick and finger size pieces for initially getting a fire going. After that you can do a star fire, burn the center, etc.

As pointed out above it's useful for making hearth boards and other tools.
 
How many times do we have to re-hash this discussion?


I have never broken a blade batoning, and I've done a lot of it. The closest I came was to damage the guard of a knife with a poorly designed guard - for my troubles finding the issue in a "tester" version of the knife, I was banned from a forum right around the time a fix for the issue was released, while charging extra for the fix and denying there was any issue to begin with (WTF??)


Batoning is a convenient way to get to dry wood, to make notches for various camp craft, to cut wood when you don't have a saw or chopper, and a million other things.


If you lack the imagination to find a reason why batoning can both save energy and provide more precise cuts, I feel sorry for you. And if you have a POS fixed blade that can't handle reasonable batoning, I feel REALLY sorry for you.


Yeah, you can snap a blade if you try your hardest to force it through some seasoned mesquite, and some folks will beat a knife to the breaking point in that kind of wood, but those folks probably own a lot of fixed blades and are willing to sacrifice one to see how far it can be pushed. I'd rather find that out while taking pictures for a W&SS thread than while I'm trying to build a shelter that is necessary for my survival. When I'm relying on one knife to do all my cutting tasks, I will damn sure baton it, but I will be sensible about it as well. When I'm doing the same thing in my backyard or a car camping trip, I might beat it just a bit harder, to see what it can take.
 
I think many knives made now are made to baton, split wood, etc... if desired. The makers know this. If I can break my ESEE RC-5 or a Busse FFBM then I am doing something way wrong. But like others have already stated, there have been long discussions on this already. :)
 
If I ever have to baton something, I would, just never found any use for the event.
 
Always do it for breaking my scetions of wood down into smaller kindling for my woodstove. I find it quicker than an axe and much more controlled when making small kindling.
The fact that my woodstore is quite small is also a factor. In bad weather I would be forced to stand in my garden swinging an axe when I can use the knife and batton sat on the bench under the cover of my woodstore !
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top