Advice on machete pattern for all around Eastern woodlands?

FortyTwoBlades said:
Canes as in the individual stalks of brambles, which were one of the primary targets mentioned by the OP. The bolo would do better on cane, but the Svord is better on bramble canes. Curse the rather imprecise nature of common vernacular for these things, eh? :D
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Ha! Ok gotcha. Yeah regional dialects, especially with regards to plants, can be a bit confusing! :) I usually hear them called briars or blackberry in my area. Good to know.

Thanks!
 
SC T100 said:
Ha! Ok gotcha. Yeah regional dialects, especially with regards to plants, can be a bit confusing! :) I usually hear them called briars or blackberry in my area. Good to know.

Thanks!
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Yes, same here in the Northeast--those are collective names, though. One cannot cut a single brier or blackberry. Likewise blackberries refer to specific species of vegetation, excluding raspberries, wild roses, and other woody-stemmed thorny plants of like kind. So when cutting a single stalk, the stalk is most commonly referred to as a cane in those sorts of plants. :)
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
Yes, same here in the Northeast--those are collective names, though. One cannot cut a single brier or blackberry. Likewise blackberries refer to specific species of vegetation, excluding raspberries, wild roses, and other woody-stemmed thorny plants of like kind. So when cutting a single stalk, the stalk is most commonly referred to as a cane in those sorts of plants. :)
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Interesting! Here blackberry is by far the most common thorny bush, so we tend to refer to it the same way as deer...either one deer or a herd of deer. A blackberry bush can be single (ex. I cut the blackberry down that was on the side of the house), or can mean a wall of blackberry (I had to get through the blackberry to get to the wetland). Of course we also get lots of Smilax (a thorny vine) too, and we tend to refer to them the same...either a single or lots of smilax.

Regional outdoor terms are always interesting to me. Lots of good info on this thread derailment! Haha! :)
 
Here in Maine (and elsewhere in New England) we often use the more general term "puckerbrush", which can mean anything from overgrown vines and brambles to scrubby trees (usually small spruce that shoot up to about 8ft or less and then die.) Most commonly encountered in re-wilded farmland, but elsewhere as well. Any sort of growth that impedes your progress and likes to snag at your clothes.
 
If we are talking light brush, grass, and briars a thin latin American machete is superior for cutting with minimal effort. A heavier machete such as a Khukri will certainly out chop on limbs but the OP has an axe and saw. I much prefer the thin machetes for work on grass, briars, and brush too light for a belt axe. On some steel I think a fine filed edge works better for grass than a polished edge--as it creates a micro/grippy serration (technical term). However a filed edge will knick up faster if you hit hard objects.
 
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