One of our Finnish members pointed out that carving a wedge and using it was preferable to using a knife. That was a "DOH!" moment for me reading that advice.
A surprisingly small amount of thermite makes batoning for dry wood unnecessary ... and it's a lot more fun.
You see in an emergency you have to use a big knife to cut down a tree, chop it into nice logs, and split those logs by batoning. That makes sense. Who would want to collect dead + dry branches, for example. No one, because that would be crazy.
It's a technique I use rarely, but do use. Mostly its for cutting a branch or 6 I didn't notice when setting up a treestand
Is there much need to split anything bigger than an inch or two to get to the dry wood inside? Nope.
Anything bigger than that is probably an exercise instead of necessity.
The majority of people that I've seen in the news for survival situations fall into one of three categories: day hikers, skiers, and motorists in remote areas. If you're one of the first two, you may not have an axe or a saw, and it's a lot easier to convince someone to take along a few ounces of knife than tools that they likely won't need.
^^^ Sure. Right. I get that and well stated BLB68 but... BATONING? Where does potentially ruining your second most important survival tool and possibly harming one's self become a good idea - even if the knife in theory can survive it?
My dad and one of his brothers used one to make white oak splits for basket weaving.Anyone ever use a froe?
Batoning seems like a "my knife is bigger than your knife" exercise.
Jim
Why baton, when there are better techniques to protect your knife?
For the rest of us, batoning with a knife is quite reasonable so long as we didn't buy a piece of crap that will break when used hard.
Should we spend so much time effort and band width argueing about a personal choice? Nope.
A bunch a like-minded goons bangin' heads and spouting opinions, experience and knowledge. That's why I like it here.