I'm going to endeavor to buy every youtube knife reviewer a froe

[yard mongrel]

"We're about to see how this knife batons through a log!"

Jesus H Christ on a trampoline. How well does it handle while cutting hide? How easily can it strip copper wire? Can it reach the bottom of a peanut butter jar? Does it have enough tip to get a splinter out? How much effort to trim a lane or sight line through oak, alder, or elm? How many times did it need touching up while dressing a deer? Can it prep a 2.5lb brook trout without making a mess? How cleanly will it slice a tomato?

No. Don't test a bit of that please. Take it out in your damn back yard and hack at a pine 2x4 (with piss poor technique) and then baton through a piece of red oak.

Buy a damn maul. Or an axe. Or a hatchet. Or a froe if you're really that determined to beat on a sharpened blade with a log. The rest of us aren't interested in making cedar shake for a living.

 

[Schattenreiter]

Interesting tid bit on that. A guy that I worked with way back in the past came to work one day talking about a show he saw on TV(probably Forged In Fire but not sure) he said they were testing knives made by different people and that to achieve the status of master knife maker they had to produce and knife that could withstand different tests. One being that it had to slice a one inch grass rope into with a single swipe. The rope was suspended with nothing weighing it down, just hanging. This was done after they had hacked thru a 2x4. Then they stuck it in a vice and bent it to a 90 degree angle without it breaking.


Seemed like a waste of a good knife to me.

 

[GymB]

Entertainers, just stop watching them.

 

[B00ger]

I often feel the same way about firearm “torture” tests where they bury a gun for long time, drag it behind a car for miles, then shove crap in the action just to then see if it will work. It’s entertaining at times, but ultimately just abuse for no solid reason.

 

[cubrock]

I’m sure you already know this, but…

Batoning comes mostly from the bushcraft/survivalist field and is useful in that context, particularly if you are either learning wilderness survival skills or you are backpacking. In those instances, you are probably not carrying an axe or hatchet and a knife that can handle batoning may be an asset. My boys have done it when we are on camping trips. I’ve never used the technique, as I’ve always found an abundance of smaller twigs to give me the wood I needed of that size.

Anywho, it has devolved into these channels testing every knife like it is the only piece of survival gear that a Green Beret might use to survive behind enemy lines. I have knives that can handle that sort of abuse, but they mostly stay in a box of knives I’ve bought and seldom, if ever, use. My EDC knives can skin a deer or cut some rope, but they wouldn’t handle batoning or puncturing car doors.

 

[yard mongrel]

I’m sure you already know this, but…

Batoning comes mostly from the bushcraft/survivalist field and is useful in that context, particularly if you are either learning wilderness survival skills or you are backpacking. In those instances, you are probably not carrying an axe or hatchet and a knife that can handle batoning may be an asset. My boys have done it when we are on camping trips. I’ve never used the technique, as I’ve always found an abundance of smaller twigs to give me the wood I needed of that size.

Anywho, it has devolved into these channels testing every knife like it is the only piece of survival gear that a Green Beret might use to survive behind enemy lines. I have knives that can handle that sort of abuse, but they mostly stay in a box of knives I’ve bought and seldom, if ever, use. My EDC knives can skin a deer or cut some rope, but they wouldn’t handle batoning or puncturing car doors.

Naught wrong with batoning, but seeing it featured in every single knife video that isn't some verbose toad bloviating while flipping a knife open and closed for 48 minutes just gets my goat.

The fixed blade I carry is pretty much a kitchen knife. I could maybe hammer it through a log, but I can definitely cut a slice of potato you can read a page out of a book through.

For the record, I had just watched a moron baton through a log with John Ek knife, then complain about the guard coming loose.

 

[chiefjason]

Interesting tid bit on that. A guy that I worked with way back in the past came to work one day talking about a show he saw on TV(probably Forged In Fire but not sure) he said they were testing knives made by different people and that to achieve the status of master knife maker they had to produce and knife that could withstand different tests. One being that it had to slice a one inch grass rope into with a single swipe. The rope was suspended with nothing weighing it down, just hanging. This was done after they had hacked thru a 2x4. Then they stuck it in a vice and bent it to a 90 degree angle without it breaking.


Seemed like a waste of a good knife to me.

The point of those tests is that the knife survives the tests and is usable.

 

[HTSmith]

"We're about to see how this knife batons through a log!"

Jesus H Christ on a trampoline. How well does it handle while cutting hide? How easily can it strip copper wire? Can it reach the bottom of a peanut butter jar? Does it have enough tip to get a splinter out? How much effort to trim a lane or sight line through oak, alder, or elm? How many times did it need touching up while dressing a deer? Can it prep a 2.5lb brook trout without making a mess? How cleanly will it slice a tomato?

No. Don't test a bit of that please. Take it out in your damn back yard and hack at a pine 2x4 (with piss poor technique) and then baton through a piece of red oak.

Buy a damn maul. Or an axe. Or a hatchet. Or a froe if you're really that determined to beat on a sharpened blade with a log. The rest of us aren't interested in making cedar shake for a living.

I'm with you, but go easy on Jesus--He could save you.

 

[Gator]

As @LizardKing has said in the past, "Bushcraft", we used to call it camping".

.