-
The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Your opinion on batoning?
- Thread starter bowieknifenick
- Start date
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2014
- Messages
- 1,761
ocnLogan thanks for the thumbs up...
The question was in part, what is batoning for? And in the situation I described, where you have dry firewood seasoned, but no kindling, and it has been snowing or raining for days, and you are in your home or cabin, finding kindling is not an option. So then the only option reasonable is to take the seasoned firewood, (In our case oak) and split of a series of smaller and smaller wedges. To do so with a hatchet is not an option. If you have not tried it, then you will not understand. Dry oak is stringy and tough and hard. And to take that nice pc of split dry wood outside and take overhead swings at it with a larger axe is also not a reasonable option for children, wives, or most people. If a proper "tire holder" or base is available, even then the energy and calories burnt whacking away would not yield nice even small split pcs for easy fie building. My family builds fires all year long and in our home in winter, sometimes daily... So we do this many times a year. it is not about "taking more time to be more fun"... That's simply a hard to understand concept.
Sometimes we use a small forest axe or boys axe as the wedge. And drive it into the wood pc with a baton log we make for that purpose. If the wood is white oak, it "pops" nicely a fair amount of the time. If it is red or black oak or hickory, then it will fight you all the way through the pc. And sometime the hatchet "wedge" is then buried in the wood, and is difficult to remove for the person that batoned it in. So most times the separation is wide enough that a knife can be inserted below the hatchet, and the batoning continued further through the pc, and the split finished, which then frees the hatchet. So to sit on the hearth, and to use a knife as a froe (which we do not have), is safer, and efficient. It enters the wood more easily because of the thinner shape, and drives more easily down through the oak seasoned wood cutting the stringy fibers as you go. I will try to post pics of this sometime for those that may not understand.
Each tool has its place. I am just trying to demonstrate how in our experience, batoning is efficient , safer for some things, and allows more people to be able to do the job then if the method would be limited to using a tool that required more muscle and control.
The question was in part, what is batoning for? And in the situation I described, where you have dry firewood seasoned, but no kindling, and it has been snowing or raining for days, and you are in your home or cabin, finding kindling is not an option. So then the only option reasonable is to take the seasoned firewood, (In our case oak) and split of a series of smaller and smaller wedges. To do so with a hatchet is not an option. If you have not tried it, then you will not understand. Dry oak is stringy and tough and hard. And to take that nice pc of split dry wood outside and take overhead swings at it with a larger axe is also not a reasonable option for children, wives, or most people. If a proper "tire holder" or base is available, even then the energy and calories burnt whacking away would not yield nice even small split pcs for easy fie building. My family builds fires all year long and in our home in winter, sometimes daily... So we do this many times a year. it is not about "taking more time to be more fun"... That's simply a hard to understand concept.
Sometimes we use a small forest axe or boys axe as the wedge. And drive it into the wood pc with a baton log we make for that purpose. If the wood is white oak, it "pops" nicely a fair amount of the time. If it is red or black oak or hickory, then it will fight you all the way through the pc. And sometime the hatchet "wedge" is then buried in the wood, and is difficult to remove for the person that batoned it in. So most times the separation is wide enough that a knife can be inserted below the hatchet, and the batoning continued further through the pc, and the split finished, which then frees the hatchet. So to sit on the hearth, and to use a knife as a froe (which we do not have), is safer, and efficient. It enters the wood more easily because of the thinner shape, and drives more easily down through the oak seasoned wood cutting the stringy fibers as you go. I will try to post pics of this sometime for those that may not understand.
Each tool has its place. I am just trying to demonstrate how in our experience, batoning is efficient , safer for some things, and allows more people to be able to do the job then if the method would be limited to using a tool that required more muscle and control.
Life would be dull and sad.
Which is why we go outside to recreate.
And that is precisely the right way to think about batonning wood and using camp stoves and knowing how to rig a tarp and how to pack a pack.
Now... All outdoor recreation is potentially lethal, so in that regard, I think we owe it to our loved ones to actually know the skills related to the gear we choose. If we choose to go with a stove, we need to know how to use it or if we choose to rely on fire, we better be good at that.
All this to say that batonning is neither knife abuse as some would have nor a requirement for safe backcountry travel as others make it sound.
No all of us. It's been a long time since I've built a fire in the backcountry. Perhaps when car camping or camping in campgrounds with designated sites, but it's been a long time since I've been car camping or camped at designated camp sites.
BlackKnight86
Say my name, cheesers!
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2003
- Messages
- 54,702
I batonned a kitchen knife through a butternut squash a few times. Used a wooden meat tenderizer.
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2007
- Messages
- 1,760
Yep. Forums discussing the need for personal choices would be the first to go lol.
Many a crustacean has met it's end under my edge in this way, splitting lobsters, crab knuckles, although the "baton" tends to just be my hand in most cases.
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2005
- Messages
- 19,385
Are you saying that you "pound" the Condor with the hammer? I have done this, but it is not recommended. Did it with some knives I didn't care around. I was curious if the Golok stood up to the steel on steel pounding.
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2013
- Messages
- 14,830
All apologies, rim. I was being overly sarcastic. In retrospect, I wouldn't baton the golog if I had a hatchet. Forgive my poor a tempt at humor.
G...
And no, I wouldn't hit the golog with the hammer poll.
I would consider that as your loss, knowing how enjoyable a good CAMPfire can be (it's even in the name!).
To each his (or her) own, though.
I've been buying knives for over 35 years, collecting knives for about 25 years, and I've been reading about knives on my computer since before we had internet forums. I've only noticed knife enthusiasts talking about batoning for maybe the past 5 years. Batoning might have existed for longer than that, it just wasn't something that knife enthusiasts did for fun.
Hard Knocks
Gold Member
- Joined
- Oct 1, 2012
- Messages
- 8,756
That's about as good as it can be stated sir. Well said.
It's not a loss, It's a choice. LNT is a choice. The backcountry has no established fire rings, fire pans, or fire pits. I can have a fire in my backyard in an established fire pit.
- Joined
- May 19, 2007
- Messages
- 7,745
At what point can we add batoning to the sticky about not discussing religion? It seems that every time it comes up its another can of bees. (there are a few other topics I'm loath to mention that are the same) Walk your own walk, hike your own hike, light your own fire. I think discussion of any bushcraft technique is valid, but you'd think from the way some guys are against batoning that we were discussing practicing leg-hold snares and then just leaving animals to suffer, or that it was the same as sacrificing a small child to gain magic powers.
I have needed to light a fire. I have never "needed" to baton because of the terrain I was provided with when I needed that fire. I've been in places that did not have such conditions, and had I needed a fire, batoning might have been the only choice. then again maybe it wouldn't have been. I have batoned knives, hatchets, and axes where the handle was too loose to be safe to swing. Knowing that it was possible and what was safe made those situations much better than risking a loose ax head, or in some cases an inattentive bystander. There are a lot of skills that are worth knowing and knowing the risks. Its well established that you might break your knife, and some knives should not probably be battoned. But at the end of the day, any blanket statement is going to be wrong. (including that one!
)
I have needed to light a fire. I have never "needed" to baton because of the terrain I was provided with when I needed that fire. I've been in places that did not have such conditions, and had I needed a fire, batoning might have been the only choice. then again maybe it wouldn't have been. I have batoned knives, hatchets, and axes where the handle was too loose to be safe to swing. Knowing that it was possible and what was safe made those situations much better than risking a loose ax head, or in some cases an inattentive bystander. There are a lot of skills that are worth knowing and knowing the risks. Its well established that you might break your knife, and some knives should not probably be battoned. But at the end of the day, any blanket statement is going to be wrong. (including that one!
)
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2013
- Messages
- 14,830
At what point can we add batoning to the sticky about not discussing religion? It seems that every time it comes up its another can of bees. (there are a few other topics I'm loath to mention that are the same) Walk your own walk, hike your own hike, light your own fire. I think discussion of any bushcraft technique is valid, but you'd think from the way some guys are against batoning that we were discussing practicing leg-hold snares and then just leaving animals to suffer, or that it was the same as sacrificing a small child to gain magic powers.
I have needed to light a fire. I have never "needed" to baton because of the terrain I was provided with when I needed that fire. I've been in places that did not have such conditions, and had I needed a fire, batoning might have been the only choice. then again maybe it wouldn't have been. I have batoned knives, hatchets, and axes where the handle was too loose to be safe to swing. Knowing that it was possible and what was safe made those situations much better than risking a loose ax head, or in some cases an inattentive bystander. There are a lot of skills that are worth knowing and knowing the risks. Its well established that you might break your knife, and some knives should not probably be battoned. But at the end of the day, any blanket statement is going to be wrong. (including that one!
Agreed.
But don't so easily discount the ebtertainment value either.
I live at the base of Longs Peak between the borders of Rocky Mtn Natl and Roosevelt Natl Forests. Been here nigh on 60 years. I've talked alot of woodslore. To me the baton debate is fairly new. And it has added a new degree of interest to the woodslore group. Indeed I found this subforum because of a batoning debate in W&C.
