There’s That Weird Old Guy With the Sword Again
October 23rd, 2008NEVER Pick my Mangoes
I found out something surprising today.
I got myself a machete at Home Depot a while back. It’s Chinese. Looks okay, but the blade is dull, and the edge has corners on it, and they obstruct the blade when it goes into stuff. I also got a hand sharpener; one of those things you pull blades through. I figured it was very unlikely to work on a big machete, but I knew it would work on other garden items, so what the hell.
It seems to have some effect on the machete, but on the whole, it’s lame. So I started looking around the web for a better answer. The ideal answer, clearly, is to build the belt grinder I wrote about a year or two ago. It would only cost several hundred dollars, and think how sharp my Home Depot machete would be.
I didn’t come to a conclusion about the sharpening, but I learned something wonderful. Gerber and Cold Steel both make machetes and sheaths. And they’re very, very cheap (around ten bucks). So, being the incorrigible Internet shopper that I am, I got one of each. Now I will have three machetes. Overkill, perhaps, but I fail to see how that is relevant to anything.
I have a Forschner scimitar knife which is only slightly shorter than a machete. It’s for slicing big things like pigs. It has occurred to me (since I sat down to write this) that a quality machete is probably a better deal. They cost half as much, and they’re even more impressive to dinner guests.
Cold Steel makes like five million different types of machete, so I went with the bolo shape. It’s wider toward the tip, to add angular momentum when you swing it. That should be fun. The Gerber has saw teeth on the back.
These things are really dangerous to use. If you swing down and miss, off come your toes. If you swing higher, the machete goes into your shin. If you swing sideways and miss, it goes into your left hand. Something to think about.
In my experience, they’re not that useful. They’re good for cutting sod, and you can use them to clear away green plants, but anything woody is likely to be a problem for a machete. So the intelligent thing seems to be to avoid using a machete until you’re sure nothing else will do.
The self-defense possibilities are obvious. Get one of these things sharp, and you’re probably better armed than an average gun owner, who would be lucky to shoot the earth successfully with three tries.
I guess I’ll get out the grinder and see what I can do with the machete I already have. If I can get the blade to make contact with the stone.
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:38 PM
I used to have an Ontario Knife machete. I found it. Someone had thrown it away after one side of the plastic handle broke off. I carved up a wood handle, added some electrical tape (just the right color and sheen, don’t ya know?), and viola! I had a machete.
It was great. Good balance. Held an edge. I had it for years until my boy… broke it. In half. How do you do that?
Anyway, I bought a cheap Walmart machete, and it’s awful. I may get another Ontario Knife machete, but now you’ve got me interested with your Gerber and Cold Steel comments.
How many is too many machetes?
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:51 PM
The most common machete down here is from a company in Colombia called Gavilan Incolma. They make about a thousand different styles and they sell for about six dollars a piece. They are used for everything. Everybody I know sharpens them on a bench grinder. They sharpen them, then resharpen them then in a few months their machete will have a blade about one inch by seven inches instead of the original twenty inch blade. Then they buy a new one and the process starts again and the old short skinny one ends up being used to gut pigs and little jobs around the house.
I have seen people chop everything from six inch tree limbs to arms and heads. Almost everybody out here carries one so that is also one of the most commonly used weapons in a brawl. They do have to wrap them in cardboard or something while traveling on a public bus.
It’s a good idea to buy two, you could have one chrome plated and wave it around and yell at people.
October 23rd, 2008 at 4:42 PM
Those machetes should come in handy for when you guys celebrate Ashura over at Man Camp and whack yourselves on the noggin with them.
October 23rd, 2008 at 5:05 PM
Try a Kukri – one of those scary bent-blade knives the Gurkhas use. Sharp as hell and heavy enough to take an arm right off.
October 23rd, 2008 at 5:42 PM
1. Right about scary as hell.
2. Used them to cut through bamboo, back when dinosaurs carried M-16’s. Bounced off everything and chewed up more than one shin.
3. Live bamboo and bamboo in fences were most resistant to cutting.
Since most of the gates in said fences were booby trapped, we cut away.
4. In 90 degree heat, sweat made your hands slippery adding to the hazard.
5. The US GOVT model was cheesy; you could bend the blade with your hands.
6. The Philippine machetes had much heavier blades. Was said some of them were ground down from leaf springs from jeeps and trailers.
7. As for plain and fancy defensive use of the weapon, defer again to the Philippinos. They are artists with any sort of blade.
8. Consider myself unarmed unless equipped with something that fires projectiles. Every Philippino had something they could stick in you and didn’t feel that way at all. Women not excepted.
9. If you need to use a machete, hire a Philippino.
V/R J West
October 23rd, 2008 at 6:28 PM
Get yourself a 16-18 inch flat bastard mill file to work the edge down. You’ll still have a good burr on it so take that down with a finer 10-12 inch flat file. It’s a machete not a skinning knife. You want a good edge but not one cut down to too sharp an angle or it’ll chip on you. Once you’ve got the right angle, use it till it starts getting dull then dress it with the short flat file. I’ve worked in the timber business and on survey crews for 30+ years and cut my way through more sh*t than you can believe. That procedure worked best for me.
Of course, if the steel ain’t worth sh*t then you’re screwed whatever you try.
October 23rd, 2008 at 6:36 PM
Quit messing around with third and fourth world technology. Those people go half naked and eat worms for a reason. Get a Woodman’s Pal. Expensive and worth every last cent. Made in USA by people with names like Johnson, Goracelli, Weisman, Rodriguez and Kraszewski, you know, AMERICAN names. Buy it here :
http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=454182&t=11082005
and get your C&R discount. You do have your 03 license, don’t you.
The tool was originally the US Army LC- 14B. It was introduced before the Dept.Of War was neutered when US Soldiers were trained and expected to slaughter and maim our enemies and Congress, (REDUNDANCY ALERT ! ! ) and weren’t yet international meals on wheels.
I got mine when I was a kid. My insane uncle liberated it when he mustered out of the Army after WWII. He used in in Europe to slaughter trees and NAZI’s. I fully expect my great grandkids to be using it to sever tree and traitor’s limbs fifty years hence. It’s made of spring steel. When it arrives, it will be SHARP and it will stay that way if you don’t cut granite or locomotives with it.
Gerry N.
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:00 PM
Something wrong with going half naked and eating worms?
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:17 PM
I spent the summer of 1965 in Yucatan using a machete all day for cutting archaeological survey lines. We cut down trees with them faster than I could have used an axe (I am from Kentucky and know how to use an axe) but most of the wood down there was pretty soft. What they were really good for was cutting very tough and fibrous plants like agaves and palms fronds. The trick is to have a machete made of very hard steel which will hold a sharp edge and to keep the edge very sharp, as is the rule with all cutting tools.
I have a much loved 14″ Forschner schaughtermesse which I use for meat cutting. I could not imagine using any machete for thin slicing country hams. Again, the trick is hard steel with a very sharp edge. I would not use it for cutting a pig into two sides though. Maybe an axe…but one can get a hand saw for $15 which works very well.
I am a carpenter and frequently sharpen things like chisels and plane blades. We carpenters know that dry grinding wheels and belt sanders are not very good for putting decent edges on fine blades. Very fine wet Arkansas type grit stones are best.
October 24th, 2008 at 3:18 AM
I have one right inside my garage door….for in case I forget my pistol when getting some clothes out of the dryer………..
October 24th, 2008 at 1:01 PM
Jerry Hossom has a post about using a grinder to sharpen a machete and just about any knife:
http://knifeforums.com/forums/showtopic.php?tid/776367/
http://knifeforums.com/forums/showtopic.php?tid/777561/
October 24th, 2008 at 3:05 PM
I grew up in Puerto Rico and every household had at least one machete. Good for yard work, opening up coconuts, pig roasts, and lopping off body parts. Now I live in MN and really miss having a good sharp machete. Everyone uses axes ’round here…
October 24th, 2008 at 6:07 PM
LEO,
Not if you live in the third world, and have nothing else to wear or eat. I don’t suppose there’s all that much wrong with living in a cardboard shack or having your neighbors crapping in the open ditch your drinking water comes from, either.
I sure wouldn’t want to, though.
October 24th, 2008 at 8:44 PM
The neighbors crap in their own open ditch.
Since we are more modern and civilized we have a flush toilet which empties directly into their ditch.
Our drinking water ditch is just for us.
October 25th, 2008 at 3:01 PM
I carry a machete in my trunk for when I end up near the cemetery so that I can trim around the family headstones. Was at an office picnic of the wife’s crew when watermelon was brought out. I solved how to slice it, quickly. Lot’s of amazed looks.
However, I was on the road once and got a call to drive to Windsor and meet an associate there at a Mold Shop. I’d be talked in once I got close and called back. Went over the Bridge and hit customs. “Where you going, eh?”. “I don’t know, I’ll know when I get there.” I should have just said: “The Casino”. Almost got strip-searched when they found the machete. Glad I’d left the gun home.
October 28th, 2008 at 7:55 AM
Yep, the Woodsman’s Pal is the way to go. The pruning hook on the end is a nice touch for an effective follow through.