There is a much larger picture out there then many people can see. We heat with wood. We split mostly oak with a log splitter, then stack and dry for a year or 2. As weather fluctuates, the wood stove is used off and on through the early winter, and some days is not needed. We have a reserve of split wood, but NOT fine kindling. So my children have been taught how to safely use a knife and to baton off pcs of fine kindling when a fire is needed. This is done on the hearth or outside if weather is okay on the splitting block. If inside, it can be done on the hearth on a wood block. For them to use a boys axe or hatchet isn't a safe option in either scenario. The swinging of the tool and high chances of a missed or glancing blow, and then risking injury as a result, is why we use a baton tool such as Becker, Busse, Condor, etc.
This is one situation of several I could describe where in my opinion, batoning is safer to accomplish a more precise result. Yes, I can use the hatchet and axe. I do, and enjoy them. I am teaching the older children how to safely use them. But to produce small kindling, and also medium size pcs, to start a woodstove fire, this is safe, effective, and also cleaner...
Just my thoughts...
+1 on this.
My parents cabin is the same way. We heat it with the wood burning stove. We used a log splitter to get the rounds into good split wood that fits into the stove nicely. We have a kindling box next to the stove that we stock with scrap from construction work, sticks, paper, or basically anything that is... kindling. We also keep a Condor bushlore in there, that we use right there on the hearth to split the larger kindling down if we need smaller wood, without having to go outside and split more with an axe/etc. This is especially nice when its currently snowing/raining/nighttime, etc.
My other most common reason to prefer batoning to a hatchet is that with much of the camping I do, it is car camping, with family and friends. The family and friends often times have small children with them. I can baton a 2-4in sized piece of wood into kindling without being worried about children running out of a bush into range of the baton. While the few times I've used an axe/hatchet in camp, I've been super cautious... but 2-3 year old kids can wander off, and don't really know what to be careful of yet and can seemingly come out of nowhere. It makes me more comfortable to swing the big blunt baton while crouched 3ft from the fire ring, than I would be using an axe/hatchet in the same conditions. And its usually damp where we go, and most twigs are covered in damp moss, so I usually just get 2-4in branch into kindling, then go from there.
And yes, I still pay attention for small children
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I don't think "more enjoyable" or "takes longer" are accurate, at least for me. I "enjoy" getting a campfire going, the batoning itself isn't really "fun". Its just something I do if the wood is wet. And while a knife isn't as thick as a hatchet, that doesn't always mean that it doesn't split as well. A thicker wedge does split better, thats true. But you need more force per unit of distance traveled because of that obtuse shape. What I've noticed is that with really fibrous woods, is that they don't split all the way down very easy, so a thinner knife can actually go farther into the wood, cutting those connective fibers more easily than the thicker wedge. There have been times when what you said is true though, as some nice dry wood just seems to want to pop apart, and the thick wedge shape of an axe/hatchet really helps with that.
And really, I've found that Hatchets and large knives are so similar in performance capabilities (they have very similar OAL and weights usually), that it usually comes down to the users skill/preference that makes one better than the other. While I know its possible to make feathersticks with hatchets, I am better at them with large knives (plus, can use it as a drawknife, etc). So for that weight class of object, I've mostly gone with a large knife.
