Would you baton your only blade?

As a few other folks mentioned, batoning wood is not the only technique to split wood, so one not need use their only knife. Some techniques mentioned like using wedges to aid in splitting work well once you have done them a few times. I have also found it possible to use a wedge shaped stone to split wood in small dimensions, by batoning the stone with a stick into the end of the wood. Obviously the stone needs to be worked to a cutting edge shape, and that takes some skill as does flint knaping.

Using care to baton on smaller pieces of wood to get your fire going, there would be no need to abuse the knife further with the larger pieces. Just get a fire going and feed it!
 
brians said:
If preserving the blade, what other methods would you use to split wood?

I've successfully used the "break your knee", "the falling arch stomp", and the "adjacent tree row your boat" methods to snap wood (not really necessary), but what about splitting techniques? Any experiences would be welcomed :)
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This previous topic "how to batton without tools" might be worth a look: http://216.26.177.84/forums/showthread.php?t=620960


Hope this helps



Kind regards
Mick
 
I would not hesitate to baton with any of the knives I carry. The only time I'd stop to think about it first would be if all I had was a dainty little slipjoint. Even then I'd probably do it anyway, just carefully. Most knives are a lot tougher than people give them credit for. If a knife can't handle getting hit with a stick something ain't right.
 
siguy said:
the stick tang blades can take plenty of beating, but i wouldn't want to abuse them. my intention with the wedges would be to minimalize the risk of damaging the knife.
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Maybe it was faulty technique, a bad blow to the spine or something, but I tweaked my Helle slightly during some very light batoning; it kind of made me leery of using a stick tang like that.
 
Never understood batoning for fire wood. I've made plenty of fires with no tools at all.
 
I would baton my only blade only if I actually needed to do it. If I don't need to do it, I will not do it. Makes sense to me. :D And in my case, "need" means that "If I do not do this, I will get killed or at the least be too incapacitated to perform my tasks." So no, I won't baton just so I'll be a little warmer a little quicker. But if I'm about to freeze to death without a fire, and for some reason can't get it going without batoning, sure, I will baton my only knife. How likely is it that I would ever have to baton anything to survive? About as likely as being hit in the face by an asteroid.

Foilist said:
Maybe it was faulty technique, a bad blow to the spine or something, but I tweaked my Helle slightly during some very light batoning; it kind of made me leery of using a stick tang like that.
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I've always said that the small general utility Scandis, such as puukkos, are not meant for batoning and similar work. With the larger, tougher leukus and similar big knives, sure, you can do it. But with the smaller Scandis, I wouldn't. They may take it, but sometimes they will not. They really haven't been designed to be beaten through a log with a wooden baton. The damage to your Helle is something that I would not consider unexpected, or the result of faulty technique. Those knives just aren't meant for that sort of thing.


Generally, when I baton, I like to use a longer knife that has a full or near full tang. But then, I have batoned with my SAK Ranger, too. I was very careful, but it can be done. There isn't too much point to it, though. :D
 
I don't. If I had too, yes. I would probably figure a way around it. You can split wood with a small saw by cutting half way then smack it on something. Or carving half eay through then give it a smack. Wedges can be made. I'm sure I can find some dry something, start a very small fire and build it up. Bust your knife and you are in a world of hurt. A man without a knife is a dead man. Of course I do have kukri and just purchased a Becker Campanion to fool around with. Right tool for the right job. Sharp knife for cutting, skinning, butchering, carving, Hate to waste the edge or trash the knife.
 
I think most of us here know the limits and functionality of the particular knives we carry. To me, batoning is far from abuse (unless you only have a SAK or a filet knife) and is one of the things I expect out of a field knife.
 
I would... I mean I do not carry nothing that can not take it..I do it for fun and having the faith in my knife at the time I most need it why stop now,I mean it is for a survival situation... I mean my one knife I have on me most time wood bumming is either RC4 & or the RC6 and knowing the Limitation of my knife I carry will help keep me from doing something I know my knife can not handle.Simple baton with the grain using a wooden baton to strike spine on my knife should not harm anything other than the coating...
 
I would if i had to. My RC-4 can sure take a beating and splits wood without any hesitation.

and the best part is that if I were ever to break the RC-4, RAT would send me a new one!!

...oh wait...i guess that wouldn't do me much good in the wilderness :D. Good thing a RAT is made so damn well!
 
I guess it all depends on the particular situation you are in .
If I needed to split a log ... batoning would be the ticket for me.
 
Most of my "batoning" involves just pushing the knife down thru wood rather than beating on it.

If you split enough small stuff that way you can usually get the larger peices to catch w/o splitting.
 
The stuff in this pic I used the 3/32" Nessmuk to split and all I did was push it down thru it. I had one hand on the handle of the knife and then a stick laid across the hump of the nessmuk I pushed down on with the other to give me a little more force but that's about the largest stuff I have really had the need to baton.

nessmukw.jpg
 
Seasoned hardwood Oak, 3-4" diameter used RC6 to split into 4 pieces
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I would not hesitate to do this in a Survival situation if it was needed.
 
pitdog said:
Yeah I would, I make sure that all the knives I carry can take such abuse before I trust them to go with me !
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What he said - except I don't consider it abuse. Done right, it just really isn't a big deal.

Would I baton a Mora? Heck, I wouldn't even carry a Mora, so it's kind of a null question. But I have batoned slip-joint folders without problems, so I suppose I would, if I needed to.
 
Quick answer to the OP - IF I had to - sure - but can't think of any immediate need that would necessitate it.

I enjoy batonning but.....I have yet to be in the woods and found that it was absolutely necessary to Baton - with regard to building a fire or setting up shelter etc.

To quantify I live in rural WV - there is a lot of pine/deadfall etc - and when the wood was wet I just whittled on the smaller twigs/branches to ditch the wet surface for fire starting + you have the shavings from what you discarded to use at a later time when the fire has dried them out.

With the environment I am in/ or camp in there is a vast assortment of different branch sizes, so have not found it necessary so far, (not saying a situation won't arise I haven't faced yet).

Really the only time I have found it Necessary to baton was when I was at home building a fire in the back yard using large pieces of Pre-cut Firewood that I was to lazy to grab an axe out of the garage to process properly / or rather because as I said I enjoy batonning just for the fun of it.
 
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