A little design doodle--thoughts?

This is my take on your design... thin out the width a little and round out the tip transition to remove stress points... my personal opinion. Good merit to that design!

Rick
 
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Magnussen said:
This is my take on your design... thin out the width a little and round out the tip transition to remove stress points... my personal opinion. Good merit to that design!

Rick

BlockBill.jpg
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Thanks! A compliment from you means a lot in my book. I'm cool with the thinner blade (it needed some tweaking anyhow--I drew that thing up months ago!) but I forgot to mention one of the advantages of the crotch between the hook and the point--it's quite handy for pushing brush out of your way without having to use your hands! Really handy when moving through thorny areas. I'll dink around with it a little more and see what I can do about reducing the stress point though. :cool::thumbup:
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
Personally I've noticed that until you become highly familiar with the hook on a tool there's the tendency to undershoot the target (i.e. strike with the section of blade UNDER the hook, rather than with the hook itself.) The extra edge may look unnecessary, but experience has taught me that it's helpful. I doubt that removing part of the sharpened zone there would provide as much benefit as it would take away. :)
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I see your point; the longer back edge would require a bit more care when draw-knifing and wear out a baton quicker, but that's about it. I stand corrected!

Magnussen's comment about easing the contour between the tip and hook is valid too; his "tweaked" design would be less likely to break the points off if you use it to dig or poke around in stuff. Stress-risers are always a no-no. It would still be good for pushing stuff out of your way.

So make one and show us how well it works! I honestly think you're onto something good :)
 
james terrio said:
I see your point; the longer back edge would require a bit more care when draw-knifing and wear out a baton quicker, but that's about it. I stand corrected!
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Except that since you grasp and/or baton the section past the hook, that's not a problem. ;):thumbup:
 
Here we go--blade kept thinned, stress point removed, and crotch of the blade maintained. The point of the hook has a little more meat on it, too, to prevent damage.

BushGlaiveThinned.jpg
 
I'll try! :D

Hopefully a mega-huge "machete de suelo" will provide enough stock in the blade for me to cut from...I really wish I could just buy a sheet of pre-heat treated 1095 that was 3mm thick. :(
 
1080 would work fine for this application. I'm not sure how I'd personally feel about doing a differential heat treat with the hook, though maybe a clay coat would have some effect. Hrm.

I'm sure you can get the 1080 in 1/8 from admiral, at least.

I'm equally sure you can find someone around here to give it a quench-n-bake.
 
koyote said:
1080 would work fine for this application. I'm not sure how I'd personally feel about doing a differential heat treat with the hook, though maybe a clay coat would have some effect. Hrm.

I'm sure you can get the 1080 in 1/8 from admiral, at least.

I'm equally sure you can find someone around here to give it a quench-n-bake.
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Hmm...and Admiral can do blank cutting...I'll need to see if it's within college student budget, but it looks promising at least!
 
I converted the pixel dimensions into real-life measurements. Looks like it would have a 16" blade!

BushGlaiveThinnedWithDimensions.jpg
 
I keep looking back at this, and thinking about it. I think it's a really good design, but I really think - and this is me, but-

I think it will chop dandy at a full 1.25 inches less breadth. overall. I'd rather see it in 1/8 than 1.6-2mm, but it's just a big chunk of blade.

Of course, I could be totally wrong. And I could be judging things on my own sense of knife balance ;) Rick seems to like it, but Rick is a size whore. (honestly, we often sit at opposite ends of the size scale due to our respective winter climates)
 
i don't know what software you're drawing that in, but since you said you were "converting from pixels to real inches" i'm guessing you're using some raster based software, like paintshop, photoshop or gimp.

if you want to have a blank cut, you'll need a vector based template, like a .ai, .eps or .psd file.

if you need/want help, i'd be happy to lend a hand. i've got 23 years of experience with Illustrator and have done plenty of templates for water jets, lasers, mills, plotters, etc. (in addition to other technical illustration and advertising work)

i can make that sketch into a cut file in about five minutes.
 
koyote said:
I keep looking back at this, and thinking about it. I think it's a really good design, but I really think - and this is me, but-

I think it will chop dandy at a full 1.25 inches less breadth. overall. I'd rather see it in 1/8 than 1.6-2mm, but it's just a big chunk of blade.

Of course, I could be totally wrong. And I could be judging things on my own sense of knife balance ;) Rick seems to like it, but Rick is a size whore. (honestly, we often sit at opposite ends of the size scale due to our respective winter climates)
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I think I wouldn't want to go any thicker than 3mm on it. As a frame of reference, remember that this thing is 2" longer than a cane machete, and just about as wide in some spots! I think that at 1/8 would potentially be on the heavy side, but I could be wrong. If you ever hear me talk machetes the thing I'll always sing in their praise is that you have nearly all of the blade mass directly behind the edge and not off to the sides. This causes it to penetrate deeper during a cut because there's less material that the blade needs to push out of the way. It makes your job a lot easier!

As this design is intended for being able to tackle everything from grasses to hardwoods, I think that breadth it spot on. :)

ben2002gsxr said:
interesting tool, but looks heavy. what thickness you looking to go with?
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We're talking machete thin. somewhere between 1.5-3 mm, but probably around 2-2.5. I'll need to take some measurements of thickness of some of my other machetes before making a final decision though. :)

fixer said:
i don't know what software you're drawing that in, but since you said you were "converting from pixels to real inches" i'm guessing you're using some raster based software, like paintshop, photoshop or gimp.

if you want to have a blank cut, you'll need a vector based template, like a .ai, .eps or .psd file.

if you need/want help, i'd be happy to lend a hand. i've got 23 years of experience with Illustrator and have done plenty of templates for water jets, lasers, mills, plotters, etc. (in addition to other technical illustration and advertising work)

i can make that sketch into a cut file in about five minutes.
Click to expand...

Correct--I did it in Gimp, though I did the math out by hand from pixel measurements in Apple Image Viewer, since GIMP has done weird things before when I let it measure stuff.

If you could convert it to a cut file that would be fantastic! I'd love to be able to get a blank made up from the image--this design has been in the works (in spirit at least) for nearly a full year of continuous thought. :cool::thumbup:
 
That's what I'm hoping to work on! :D If I manage to get one built and it works well I may send it to the folks at condor for them to eye over. Maybe that'll peak their interest a little. I'm not giving on this one! :cool:
 
Not my style but nice all the same. What about a slight recurve to assist the draw knife aspect? Just a slight one that would help lock the blade to what you would be drawing. To me the curve of the blade would make drawing more difficult.

This is a very rough edit to your image:o
**removed image by request:thumbup:**

Just my thoughts and I wont be insulted if they are rejected:thumbup:
 
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Your thoughts and points are valid, but modifying it in that manner would diminish the ease with which you could make controlled chops with the base of the blade, which is remarkably handy for doing rough shaping of wood and would be done more frequently than using it as a draw knife. The consideration for use as a draw knife is more so that you can do it if you have to, but chopping is where I've allocated most of the design features.

Thanks for commenting though! :cool:
 
*psst* cutting profiles from heavy cardstock (beer or soda cases) or even hardboard is much quicker than fooling around with whatever software you may have. Are you designing a knife or practicing your 'puter skills? ;)

Make some mock-ups and play with them.
 
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