Battoning is a way of splitting a round of wood by placing the blade of your knife,(or axe) flat against the wood and driving it through with another piece of wood, the baton. This is the primary technique of taking wood down to either expose the dry interior in the case of wet wood, or breaking down a larger piece of wood, in order to make a fire. If you don't have an axe or hatchet, this is the way to use your knife to reduce the dead standing wood you sectioned with your saw (or knee, boot, a convenient rock or tree crotch), down to a size that will burn from the ignition source of a match/lighter or ferro rod. No matter what kind of tinder you carry, you still need to make big sticks small and dry enough to catch.
If you don't have a saw, you can drop and section a tree (3-4") with a knife and a baton (or rock, very abusive to the knife. Use a stick if available). But your knife as your primary survival tool, has to be strong enough in both structure and edge/blade design/ metallurgy, to be able to do what you need to be done and survive.
I have a Dozier Yukon skinner, great knife, sharper then hell, but deeply hollow ground. Great for skinning/taking apart an kill, but I don't imaging it would survive shelter building/ making a fire through battoning.
My question was, did you ever use the knife(s) you carry to take a piece of wood down to thumb size, pencil size, pencil lead size, ribbons, and shavings? Yeah, fat wood/lighter pine, birch bark, pitch, or man made fire paste, magnesium shavings,tryoxine/wet fire,Vaseline cotton, road flares will help, but they won't make a fire out of a log.
Test your stuff and your selves. Prove to your self that your stuff works and you know how to use it. Then do it blindfolded (do you know how to find and use your stuff by feel?). Then do it in the worst conditions you can find, because that's when you will need it.
Hint: you need to be able to get a fire going no matter what, until your in a place that you can't. Then you need to be able to depend on your clothing choices and equipment choices to keep you alive without a fire. Clothing as your first layer of shelter. Recreational equipment as life support equipment, that will save you when your injured and can't move, or sick, or so cold that you can't stop shacking (care to try to flick your bic?). Practice like your life depended on it, and choose your tools and accoutrements accordingly.
