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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Bamboo, Ray Mears and a knock to my pride
- Thread starter beef
- Start date
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2009
- Messages
- 6,234
Ray Mears does this crap for a living. He makes money doing it, he's a professional. It's something I'd expect from someone who spends their life recreating outdoors for money. Don't let his abilities get to you 
Be careful of what you wish for. Do you know how to get rid of bamboo ?
YOU MOVE Seriously this stuff grows like crazy, It'll take over your yard before you know it!
Thank you kindly as well mate for introducing it :thumbup:
Toucan Oasis
BANNED
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2009
- Messages
- 793
You got that right !
The neighboring farm has that yellow cane crap with the green stripes. I have to take a backhoe about once a year and give it an attitude adjustment so it doesn't " walk" to my farm.
I use it for everything from stairs to handrails, shadehouses, drinking mugs, etc etc.
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2009
- Messages
- 1,142
Yeah, it's a parang; Valiant Co.makes a very close copy (Sumatra, Parang Bandol)...
It's actually a very well made blade...full convex grind and about a 1/4" thick. I seen that episode before and after handling the Valiant version, it's easy to see how that short, heavy blade makes short work of that bamboo!
ROCK6
This one is the closest I've seen to the one Mears uses. I tried and tried to find the exact one on the net awhile back and no luck. I assume it's a custom, but I couldn't even find a reference to it. There are some other nice parangs out there that were in a recent thread, but they're bigger.
And I also find watching his skills frustrating. It's almost like a damn magic trick or something sometimes. He's just that good I guess...
), similar to the one on top of this pic - 
Actually, like other grasses, they are divided into two types. The one you are referring too is "running bamboo" types, that is, grasses that spreads fast through "leaping" or "running" roots. This is the type of grass you normally want on your lawn. Those ,in the case of bamboo, can absolutely be a severe invasive menace. For this type it's recommended to have a "dead bed" of a few meters around the vegetation, or a significant barrier of other sorts, like a wall that reaches a good bit under ground, to stop the "runners".
The other type is clumping bamboo, that grows by slowly adding on outwards through root-clumps. Just like other grasses growing as rugs, those are very easily controlled, and are generally the preferred type for most purposes.
Here in Spain we have plenty of the common river cane, witch is a kind of bamboo, although a lot weaker. Still a popular traditional building material for roofing and fences though. Those are, thankfully, the clumping type of grass. They are also the reason I'm researching Parangs and other lighter machetes, since my 16", 10mm thick Khukuri is way to heavy, and not well suited for harvesting or working such material.
I'm also looking to grow a few "real" bamboo types this fall/winter... -perhaps even Banana or the more locally suitable "Platano", a bigger, less tasty banana variety, that are more for cooking than eating raw.