2021-025 | BLADE & BATON STICK, AN INSEPARABLE PAIR

WISDOM TRAILS: A knife is a tool and can do so many things. Pair it with another tool like a batoning stick and you can save so much energy and makes knife work accurate and neat.

 

First seen in Facebook

May 6, 2018

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PEOPLE COULD NEVER appreciate the value of their work blades until they pair it with a heavy stick. A stick hammered, or more precisely called batoning, on the spine of a blade could make splitting or cutting wood easier. It also would make a neat and accurate result if you cut out a notch or opening a bamboo pole which you intend to use as an improvised cooking pot. 

Conversely, you could never appreciate the value of a batoning stick if your stick is slender, lightweight and rotting or your blade is serrated on the spine. The serrations would leave your stick in tatters and broken, leaving your work in a distasteful result or it remains unfinished. The simple design of a blade is then ideal for batoning work and that blade becomes very flexible for usage.

 

Sticks ideal for batoning should be thick, just enough to grasp with one hand; must be heavy; and of the right length, at 15 to 17 inches. Sticks for batoning can be found anywhere in the woods. Some would carve a thicker wood into a likeness of a German potato masher as their batoning stick. Such design is ideal only when you have a permanent camp to go back to and do bushcraft. 

Early man used a club to forage and hunt and that club reduced in size as the blade was invented. Stick was replaced by mallets when cutting blades became specialized like chisels and carving knives during the time when fine carpentry was in demand. The stick and the blade remained as backcountry and frontier tools when it had lost its appeal in urban and suburban areas due to modern living. 

I have learned how to baton a blade when I was nine. Eventually, I used two sticks to assist the blade in splitting twisted-grained, knobby and knurled wood. When my blade created an opening after a severe batoning, I wedged the other stick on the crack and the baton stick would force this second stick downward, thereby relieving the blade of the pressure.

A baton stick is so important in notching work, where a semblance of accuracy is needed, during construction of shelters, a camp furniture and other essential tools for different applications. Batoning techniques can be learned easily as are the basic notches. Once you progress with different material like a bamboo pole, a different technique has to be used. 

Although not encouraged, batoning a blade to leave a trailsign on a tree is better than hacking at a trunk haphazardly like most people do. The result is neat and you could choose angles that are impossible to achieve without an aiding stick. The advantage of a baton stick is it could make a smaller knife perform beyond its length and weight. 

For thinner blades, made of stainless steel, it would be a risk should you proceed to baton it. You can only do so lightly and cautiously with a smaller stick for a job that is not that heavy. Baton sticks are not carried in your backpacks but are found. Another use of the baton stick is you could use it as an aid in walking up a very steep incline. But that is another story.  

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WARRIOR PILGRIMAGE BLOG, personified by this writer, is synonymous with the Outdoors, since Bushcraft and Survival is its niche. Safety and Security are its bedrock when it ventured into organizing outdoor events that involved people as in adventure/pilgrimage guideships and seminars; and explorations and expeditions.

 

Through tutorship, experience, folk knowledge and good old common sense, this writer was able to collect useful information which he is currently documenting in a book titled, ETHICAL BUSHCRAFT. He shares some of this information and knowledge in his training sessions; in his social-media account; and in this blog.