Why?

[Mikael W]

This.....

However.....

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Well...I suppose You get what You pay for, but it was sad to see Your broken Khukuri!
Inclusions are never good!
The remaining blade is large enough for a regrind into a regular sheath knife.

Peter at Fällkniven keeps me informed regarding broken NL's.
For 12 years now, no NL knife has been returned to him in pieces.

I got the above NL2 in 2007 and it has seen some hard use over the years.
To my experience, they stand up to very high expectations.


Regards
Mikael

 

[KingKoma]

I know this is a topic that has been pretty much beaten to death at this point, but if threads like this really is redundant why is it that every time a knife is shown to have broken while batoning the claims of abuse and comments like "you should have used an axe" starts?

 

[Codger_64]

Your question is redundent. Batoning/beating a knife through wood is not a traditional use for a knife in many parts of the world. Wood is/was most often split using traditional tools such as axe, hatchet, froe, or maul and wedges. It really has only been fairly recently that makers of knives have catered to users of knives by making thicker knives constructed to withstand repeated pounding and twisting, in response to market demands. Any time a knife is maximixed for one task, it loses performance in other tasks. A good illustration of this is the fact that butchering and kitchen knives have evolved into a series of sizes and shapes to optimize their performance in specific butchering tasks. The same is true of another genre, hunting and fishing knives. But almost always, knives have been repurposed by users and sometimes stressed beyond their design limitations resulting in a broken or deformed knife. Some users learn and use the knife for it's intended purpose, well within it's design parameters, and some buy replacement knives which are more well designed for the task that broke their previous knife. Of course there are always the few who never learn and break knife after knife.

 

[Cereal_killer]

I do it cause its fun... I have a 2.5" diameter oak dowel rod that I hammer with however, only in a true emergency would I think of using a metal hammer/bar to pound.

 

[Rat Finkenstein]

an old hickory butcher knife will baton just fine, as will numerous traditional knives. The constant attacks on this one particular traditional skill is strange. What's next, people saying matches are stupid, only lighters and other flint based ignition is good?

 

[KingKoma]

I dont know much about other parts of the world but around here (Sweden) a common tool for splitting kindling for the stove was a knife that resembles a parang, but with a straight blade and hook on the back for fetching and setting up the wood to be split. Another clue as to how common it was for knives to be used this way is all the old bill hooks with mushroomed spines. In fact, large knives have always been a central tool for non-urbinized, pre-industrial people and the tool you use is the tool you have at hand. These old school big knives where made to be used and where used in a way that would make modern manufacturers of "hard use" knives reach for their smelling salt.

 

[338375]

What cracks me up about people that do this is, they say it is for survival purposes, yet most of the pictures are taken in peoples back yards

 

[Mikael W]

What cracks me up about people that do this is, they say it is for survival purposes, yet most of the pictures are taken in peoples back yards

My pic above certainly is from my backyard, but I don't claim I'm into "survival purposes".
I used that pile of firewood on a winters day, when the power supply was out.


Regards
Mikael

 

[KingKoma]

I dont think testing a knife or the skills to use it in the back yard is all that funny but if someone where to take pictures of themselves batoning firewood in an actual survival situation, that would be funny.

 

[Mikael W]

I dont know much about other parts of the world but around here (Sweden) a common tool for splitting kindling for the stove was a knife that resembles a parang, but with a straight blade and hook on the back for fetching and setting up the wood to be split. Another clue as to how common it was for knives to be used this way is all the old bill hooks with mushroomed spines. In fact, large knives have always been a central tool for non-urbinized, pre-industrial people and the tool you use is the tool you have at hand. These old school big knives where made to be used and where used in a way that would make modern manufacturers of "hard use" knives reach for their smelling salt.

Yes, I remember such a wood batoning knife from my early childhood.
It was an ugly metalbar 12" x 3/8" x 1,5" with 6" sharpened edge.

I asked my father a few years ago if we still had it, but no.
He got rid of it as it wasn't any good memories for him, of all the hard labor his mother had to do with it.


Regards
Mikael

 

[Codger_64]

I had no idea that a khuk was a traditional Swedish firewood processing tool. But if this breakage is a problem, I believe that some of the world's foremost makers of axes and hatchets are in Sweden. Maybe they weren't designed and intended for the domestic market, but they have garnered quite a few fans and users here in the U.S. and in Canada. Gransfors Bruks is one. Hultafors Bruk is another as is Wetterlings. Odd there should be so many well respected makes with no domestic market.

 

[Jastab]

I'd LOVE to see the day that someone breaks one of MY knives... 1/4" thick A2 and 52100, I'd say mine where developed for this sort of thing.

 

[Mikael W]

I had no idea that a khuk was a traditional Swedish firewood processing tool. But if this breakage is a problem, I believe that some of the world's foremost makers of axes and hatchets are in Sweden. Maybe they weren't designed and intended for the domestic market, but they have garnered quite a few fans and users here in the U.S. and in Canada. Gransfors Bruks is one. Hultafors Bruk is another as is Wetterlings. Odd there should be so many well respected makes with no domestic market.

It isn't!
And yes we do use axes here.


Regards
Mikael

 

[Melvin-Purvis]

I burn about 7 to 8 cords of oak every winter.

A little off-topic, but this gave me pause. Why are you burning so much wood? Is this fire place or wood stove burning? I use a very efficient wood stove to heat a 1500 sq.ft single story house to around 70'F, live in NW Montana about 90 miles from Canuckistan, 30 miles from Glacier Nat'l Park, and only burn ~3 cords of much softer dry Larch per season. Our cold season runs from late October through early April, or roughly six months. p.s. I use a chainsaw, then a maul or axe...

 

[McVeyMac]

Wood stove (2 of them) two story house, 3,400 sq. ft.

 

[OnionPoptarts]

I baton through wood with a knife because I go on multi-week long hikes. Carrying an axe is kind of silly as its a single use tool, but a good knife can do a whole lot more. I think a strider would be a good companion on my ventures, but I really don't wanna give Mick any of my money, as it is my Emerson Super CQC-7 fits the roll really well.

 

[KingKoma]

Yes, we have a long standing tradition of axe making and axe use and that tradition is paralleled by an equally long tradition of long blade making and use. One thing that is clear when looking at those traditions is that the axe is a specialized tool used for very specific tasks. The long blade on the other hand is, with a few exceptions, a general use tool that where beaten on and abused (and Im sure often hated, as Mikael mentions), so much fewer of these are left in recognizable condition than axes but they where common.

Back in those days they had the opportunity to take either an axe or a large knife when they where going on hunting trips or just travelling the forest. If I where a betting man I would say that in most places, most of the time the axe stayed at home, doing axe work.

 

[gytheran]

Well, I went to google and searched for "Why didn't he use an axe" and hit "feeling lucky" and I got B*slapped with this... weird...

 

[Smokinape]

The only people I have seen baton wood are the ones who post on the internet knife forums. Everyone else uses an axe to chop, not process wood...

 

[Shrub]

I don't understand why you'd care. If people want to use
THIER knives to baton and the knife makers want to
make knives for them that can, so what? Unless they
are using your knives to do it, what does it matter
to you? Not trying to make this personal, just seems to
come up daily and is really silly. If you don't like batoning,
don't do it. If you don't like the knives designed to be
"heavy duty" for that type of task, don't buy one.


Reasons people use knives to baton wood:

#1. A knife is a whole lot smaller, lighter and easier to carry
than an axe and splitting maul.

#2. A knife can usually do many other tasks as well. Axes tend
to suck pretty bad at carving and are inconvenient as food slicers.

#3. You can have a knife one you almost anywhere, and you don't
always get to plan weeks ahead before things go wrong.

#4. Many knife manufacturers claim their knives are made for
heavy duty use, including batoning.

#5. Some people may not be able to buy a nice axe and a nice knife,
both of good quality. So between two cheap products or one good
one the choice is pretty easy.

#6. Axes actually break quite a bit. That's why there are many
options to buy new handles for them at nearly any hardware
store. A broken handle can be just as bad as chipped steel.

#7. Ever heard of someone batoning a piece of wood only to
have the knife glance off the wood and shatter a shin or
cut off their toe? Me neither...