Mega Thread of Batoning Wisdom

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lobo9er

lobo9er

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Just watched a Youtube video from a guy that broke his cold steel knife batoning through fire wood. Cold Steel did replace it, blaming a faulty heat treat. But also included a letter disparaging the customer for batoning. Batoning may not be a traditional use for a large knife, but I think we all expect our big choppers to perform this task. Also cold steel said to use the knife to craft a wedge. If im lost in the woods and need to start a fire with what am I going to craft a wedge out of to split fire wood?????????
 
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I tend to agree with Cold Steel. I try to protect my knife's edge and reserve it for cutting tasks.

Is there really a need to use a knife that way. I'm not saying you can't do the batoning with a knife, just that I've have found better options. I like a belt axe or tomahawk for cutting firewood or making expedient shelters. Over the past few years I have taken to carrying a Gerber folding saw with me. Much easier and faster than trying to hack through a sapling or limb with a knife.
 

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I don't baton with any knife, and don't understand the internet fascination with the process. The fact that he broke his knife that way should tell us something, faulty heat treat or not. As PRM says, a small hatchet and a folding saw are the right tools for the job. If you are lost in the woods and break your knife, then you are up the proverbial creek.
 
I make mine to take "abuse", which I don't consider batoning to be. I figure that if a blade can't take being used as a hatchet, splitting wedge, or in dire circumstance a pry bar, then it's not something I'd want on my belt.

Back in the day, Cold Steel made its nut when they introduced their popular chisel-pointed, Kraton gripped tanto blade. The advertisement for it showed it driven through a car door to prove its toughness. Guess their idea of abuse has changed, eh?
 
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I would never dream of batoning a valued blade that I own.....unless it was the only tool I had in a really bad situation. So is there validity to wanting to see a blade take it? To me yes.
 
I consider it abuse. If you want to split wood use wedges and a maul. You want to chop, use an axe. You want to make shakes “batton”, use a froe. Froes have been used for centuries.

IMG_10761362Froe.jpg

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I do not understand this trend to make knives into axes, pry bars, or froes. Each application has forces and requires different steels and heat treatments. If you broke a hard, high cutlery grade steel beating and twisting it, that’s abuse in my book.

If im lost in the woods and need to start a fire with what am I going to craft a wedge out of to split fire wood?????????
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Pick up dead wood and start the fire. Then, turn on the GPS function of your cell phone and use google maps to direct you to a road.
 
Im with Cold Steel here, they replaced the blade (kudos for standing by a product even though it was abused, most companies wouldn't do that), and asked the guy to stop destroying his equipment. I am also firmly in the camp of folks who say get an axe/saw if you need firewood. If you really want a $300 knife and use it like a axe, go for it. But a $30 axe will do a better job, last longer, and be able to tackle much larger logs. Sometimes I think the taciti-cool crowd just gets into the mindset that old cant possible be better.
 
I am absolutely not a fan of Cold Steel (Leatherneck SF? which is it SF or Marine?) or any Ka-Bar clone knife but that clear enough seems to be a fella asking that knife to do another tool's job - regardless of whether or not some other knife is able to do it.

What, is he gonna tell me he wouldn't have the other tool in some survival environment? Well that is just the environment in which you do not imperil the integrity of your knife by making shingles with it unless you can select a wood better to use for say, cooking on.

Gotta side with CS on this one - much to my dismay.
 
If you want to split wood use wedges and a maul.
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No, no, no, no. 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.
 
I've done it enough to teach myself how to do it, but really never felt comfortable batoning a knife, just seems like a broken knife/bad accident in the making.
 
I think if you have to use a folding knife for a log splitter, you went in unprepared.
And you should break your knife.

But it should be strong enough to use to get you out of a jam you got yourself into by being unprepared.
Maybe just chipped and broken when you get done but still a cutting edge of sorts.
That is not the fault of the knife maker.

If you plan ahead to split firewood?
Bring an ax or wedge.

rc
 
Not necessarily the best possible way of splitting wood for a fire, is it?

"this is steel - this is wood" comment made me sigh. Such depth of knowledge
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Why is it that every Finn think he knows everything there is to know about wood? ;)
 
I think we all expect our big choppers to perform this task
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I'd like my knife to be able to, but I still think it's abuse. When I did it with my Camp Defender on sap-thick pine, I cringed as I did so. And I don't plan on doing it again.

I'm no Cold Steel apologist, but it sounds like they did right by the customer.

John
 
Back in the day, Cold Steel made its nut when they introduced their popular chisel-pointed, Kraton gripped tanto blade. The advertisement for it showed it driven through a car door to prove its toughness. Guess their idea of abuse has changed, eh?
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I guess not. They do a lot of things in their videos to prove the toughness of their knives. I think they, and most other reasonable people, believe that a lot of what they do in their demonstrations constitutes abuse.

It's like gun torture tests. Ruger did a test where they plugged the barrel of a P89 (or P85--can't recall) with a bolt, machined part of the slide away and then fired the gun. The gun survived. Do you think for even a pico-instant that Ruger was demonstrating that so that people who purchased their guns could follow suit? Clearly they realized it was abuse--they were just letting you know that they had designed and built one heckuva tough pistol.

As far as the video that prompted this thread goes--I watched it all the way through and I think that he would probably not have broken the knife if he hadn't been set on breaking it. Batoning is really hard on a knife even if it's done "right". If you don't keep your strikes lined up with the knife properly then it's even more likely that something's going to give.

In other words, if the strike is lined up so that the force is straight down through the spine to the blade edge, that's one thing. If the strikes are delivered to the spine such that the line of force is at a significant angle to the line through the spine to the blade edge then it's just a matter of time before something bends or breaks.
 
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Well, batoning is a valid technique and everything, but I don't think anyone would advocate it ahead of using an ax. I also don't think you can call it anything but abuse. Abuse that is apparently warranted (I know how to do it, I have done it, but I have never NEEDED to do it) from time to time, but abuse nevertheless.

One thing about this that always baffles me is people seem to feel that it is necessary to baton full fledged logs. Either pick up dead wood, or failing that, opt to baton smaller, more easily attainable wood sources, like branches. Easier and safer to cut, easier on the knife, and they burn fine. Not to start an internet war about TV survival hosts, but on a few occasions Cody Lundin has done this successfully with his ever-present Mora, and while I love Moras, I don't think anyone thinks of them as being particularly rugged. Anyway, it just makes sense to me that if things have gotten that bad, trying to take apart a piece of wood a foot in diameter is both safer and less energy intensive than cutting down a number of branches that are an inch or so in diameter.
 
I too have broken a Cold Steel knife "batoning" (a term I haven't heard of before) a piece of wood. The piece of wood? A dried 2x2. The "baton"? Another piece of 2x2. I learned splitting kindeling with a knife back in the Boy Scouts when we all carried canvas rucks and have never had a knife break, but that's what the Cold Steel tanto did. It broke right in half. Two pieces. This was one of the orginals with the brass guard and butt cap. A gift from my brother-in-law. To say I was and still am shocked is an understatement.

As to "batoning"(I'm sorry, this term makes me giggle) being abuse, it seems to be on the same level of abuse as not putting your kid in five different after school programs. All PC and crap. Splitting small pieces of wood is safer and easier to control with a knife than with an axe.

Which is why I was using a knife advertized by punching through cars to split a 2x2. And it broke...in half.

I haven't contacted Cold Steel yet. I'm not sure I want a replacement knife from them. I used to carry that knife as a real live or die tool and it broke splitting a 2x2. (Sorry, I can't seem to let that go)
 
Timbokhan,

It might be a valid technique, but valid where? In a true emergency you are not going to be splitting logs for firewood... unless your emergency happens to take place on a barren isle, where the only potential source of firewood is driftwood. You split logs in your backyard and on a marked hiking trail where logs are provided for you. What the guy in the video advocates is pure fantasy. Also, his gun/emergency analogy fails miserably as well. He brought the gun in to bolster his ego. Or does he practice throwing his Glock... instead of firing?

In the backwood you typically collect firewood. And because you collect it probably the best tool you could have (also in an emergency) is a good saw.

Edit:
Those of us who have actually made a fire in the backwood know that you can do without a knife, or an axe most of the time. You collect kindling (dry grass, old mans beard, pine resin etc), you collect dry branches and small twigs. Start with the kindling and the twigs and build from there. This is how it goes in the northern hemisphere, at least. I don't know about jungle.

But, if this guy wants to climb a tree with his rear end first, by all means let him.

toivo,

We pretend...
 
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Why ... I don't ... splitting wood for a wood stove, I have done. A lot. I used an axe, a maul, and wedges. It was my chore from about age 10 until I moved out of my parents' house.

Splitting wood for a campfire, I have never done. Put the log in the fire. It will burn. Put one end of a really long long in the fire. Guess what? When the part in the fire is burnt, push in more of the unburned wood. If the log is thick, it will burn longer.

Don't need a saw, don't need an axe, don't need to break a good knife. Just need to get the fire started.

Making shelters, a small axe or saw will work much better, faster, and safer.
 
Hmmm I disagree most on this one. Cold steel commercials show what there blades "can do", then I buy one and I'm not supposed to use the heck out of it cuz it will break? It can go throw a car door but not wood?
 
Those of us who have actually made a fire in the backwood
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lol so anyone who has "batoned" wood while camping hasnt? Yes collecting small sticks works but so does breaking up some bigger ones. Sometimes I bring a axe some times I bring a big knife. All depends on wieght I want to carry, and things I am planning on doing. Broke up plenty of wood batoning with a small kukri.
 
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