Friends Don't Let Friends Use Knives To Baton Wood

(Source)

In "Knife Maker Mike Stewart Discusses Thin Blades And Batoning Firewood" at Survival Common Sense, Stewart notes that batoning a knife to cut wood--particularly larger pieces of wood--is actually relatively recent phenomena.

Reviewers needed something to do to get attention and whoever the first guy was that did this started all of them doing it. Lots of people today actually think it is normal to crossgrain baton stuff – it was not until the last 25 years or so. Most skilled outdoorsman knew how to baton in an emergency but never actually did it because their skill prevented them from being in an unprepared emergency. Same with prying things with knives. It is a No-No. All the time.

While I'm no Cody Lundin, I don't think I'm completely ignorant of field craft and I'd never even heard of it until sometime after I started this blog. 

    But with people wanting knives that they can use for batoning, knife designers and manufacturers are producing knives suitable to the task. The results, however, are thicker, heavier knives that are not as quick or handy as their predecessors. Stewart notes, for instance, that "[b]owie knives were invented in the late 1820s. NONE of them were over 3/16ths-inch thick and most were closer to 1/8th-inch thick. Nobody thought they were a camp knife or a wood processing knife." He adds:

    Let’s look further back in history – to times when the knife was the only tool that most people in early cultures used – what do we see ?

    We see seven to nine inch blades (Sometimes a little longer) that are thin – usually 1/8th to 3/16ths inches thick. They vary in regional shapes but they are light – fast and very efficient. They were used for making shelters,  cutting kindling for fires, household chores and camp chores and even used to break down game to carry back to the village. They are all thin blades.

    Why are the big knives (called machetes) that are almost unique from Southern North America all through Central America to the tip of South America ALL thin ?

    It is because the thin blades work and work better for real time tasks than the thicker, slower and heavier knives. I have never seen a picture or a film or a video of any indigenous people from these regions batoning anything. They also know the difference between softwoods and hardwoods. When they encounter hardwoods, they go and get an ax or now – a chainsaw.

    People that actually know how to use large knives do not go smashing them around at trees or logs – it is just not done by skilled people.