Recommendation? Best tool for Blackberry?

Square_peg said:
You're describing NW blackberry hacking perfectly. And you're dead on, long, sharp and very acute are the keys. Also, cutting the canes into short lengths as you describe is exactly what I do. That way thery can be safely trampled without climbing back up your trouser.
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The scratches may have healed by now, but otherwise the experience is still pretty fresh in my mind :). But I did in fact do all the work I originally set out to do, so at least I've got some experience to lend/rely on now.

The other reason I had for cutting the blackberry into those lengths, was according to some of the info I found on the internet (IIRC, it was the WA/OR state websites, etc), Himalayan blackberry canes longer than that that drop to the ground can actually take root and grow into a new plant, and I absolutely did not want to deal with that :p.
 
Am I the only one who read this thread wondering why a question about a tool for a Blackberry cellular phone would be in the ax forum?
 
I may be a little late to the conversation but ive delt with extremely thick blackberries here in australia. Ive seen places where a whole acre is densely packed with them. My method is to use a telescopic pole saw like this.
rEw45Pb.jpg
to hack away, chopping the runners into small enough pieces to be dragged out with a nail style rake. You dont have to get too close to the tangled mess and its much less tiresome than swinging away all day.
 
Not my picture but this is the sort of places i mean. They get to so bad you're faced with an impenetrable wall of them.
HfcR5Rw.jpg
horrible stuff to deal with. They also throw out roots wherever they touch the ground. To make things worse if you leave even an inch of a chopped up cane on the ground it will turn into a whole new bush rather quickly.
 
ocnLogan said:
I did totally misunderstand the hooked blades suggested then 42. Most looked like billhooks or the like, where the inside was the sharpened edge, and that was what I was referring to here as probably "less than ideal". But wouldn't a hook sharpened on the outside, just end up being a long trailing edge? Or are you talking still sharpened on the inside edge, but just cutting away from you?

The problem with "dragging" canes wasn't usually too big of a deal, except when I was quite literally "wading" into these tall thickets (where I couldn't reach the canes at the top of the arc, even though I'm ~6'1", and was holding a 30in OAL machete). I mean, I did my best to not literally be encircled/tunneling into the center, but even when I was working around the edges the best I could, it was in this scenario when dragging a cane was the worst/most likely to occur.

Most of the times when I dragged a cane, the one that hit me wasn't the one that I was trying to cut. Instead it was one I couldn't quite reach yet, and was either completely intact and long, or, was previously cut, but suspended/stuck above me by other canes.

The reason it typically wasn't the one I was cutting, was that usually I was cutting off 1 - 1.5 ft of cane at a time. If it drags then, its shorter than the length of the machete, so no big deal. But in the really tall areas, I couldn't always cut 1-1.5 ft off at a time, because it was out of reach overhead, so I'd have to go to where I could cut it next, and sometimes that left 4-8ft of cane coming down at once, which led to more tangles/snags, and why it was worst in those situations.

Fortunately, its really not a major problem. Its not like heavy tree limbs were coming down on my head. The canes do have some good sized thorns, but I wore a hat, and had a hoodie on (this was Feb/Mar in the PNW when I was doing this), so there weren't any real injuries, just scratches.

That said, I could have leaned the edges back on the machete more. And if I had a dedicated blackberry machete, and lots more blackberry to cut, I would go with a longer and lighter one, and sharpen it very acutely.
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No no no...I still mean edged on the interior. But I mean making a slicing cut with them, not a snagging or hooking one, and with the edge nice and nearly scythe-thin. Here's a video of a corn hook that I made for a Danish friend (they don't have tools like this there) showing a variety of techniques on targets not altogether dissimilar from brambles, including a lot of burdock. There are some tugging cuts in there, but you wouldn't use those methods with thorny stuff. You can see that the slicing strokes with a thin edge zip right through the lithe, resistant stalks.

 
jeez, i think the only solution for black berries like that is a fully enclosed suit, a scythe with a brush blade and about 30 other people doing the same thing
 
Rise AU said:
Not my picture but this is the sort of places i mean. They get to so bad you're faced with an impenetrable wall of them.
HfcR5Rw.jpg
horrible stuff to deal with. They also throw out roots wherever they touch the ground. To make things worse if you leave even an inch of a chopped up cane on the ground it will turn into a whole new bush rather quickly.
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I just looked it up, as I had no idea that blackberry was invasive to Australia. But it turns out, while the exact species of blackberry are different (from my 3min of searching online :p), the situation here in the PNW is largely similar to what you're showing above.

People brought it here thinking it would be useful for "reasons". Then it escaped, and has taken over nearly everywhere that you don't actively fight it.

I had a good 100ft x ~25 ft that looked very similar to the above photo, but maybe a touch shorter (likely at least to the end of the yellow... tape measure (?) the man is holding).

I've got before/after photos, just haven't found a new photo hosting site yet, otherwise I'd have shared them by now.

FortyTwoBlades said:
No no no...I still mean edged on the interior. But I mean making a slicing cut with them, not a snagging or hooking one, and with the edge nice and nearly scythe-thin. Here's a video of a corn hook that I made for a Danish friend (they don't have tools like this there) showing a variety of techniques on targets not altogether dissimilar from brambles, including a lot of burdock. There are some tugging cuts in there, but you wouldn't use those methods with thorny stuff. You can see that the slicing strokes with a thin edge zip right through the lithe, resistant stalks.

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Oh, I see what you mean then. As it turns out, as I'm not familiar with corn hooks, and other tools like that. I didn't even consider the possibility of a "snagging or hooking" cut. So what I was envisioning was the slicing style cuts that you did in the rest of your video.

Perhaps someday I'll try a corn hook or similar. At a glance though, I still think it wouldn't have been quite as "ideal" (if we can call any tool that involves manually hacking threw these things "ideal"...) as the machete. If you did drag a cane with it, it looks like it would drag it farther. Maybe it would be better at slicing it though? Hard to tell with no experience on it.
 
To minimize snagging you strategize the approach you make relative to the particular canes such that a failure to cut cleanly doesn't yank them towards you, just like with a machete. Tools of this general class are what I'd personally choose. Light and thin with a super-thin edge and the blade oriented to cut with a slicing stroke.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
.....you strategize the approach you make relative to the particular canes.....
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But we have a thousand canes intertwined and running this way and that. That corn hook would be a terrible tool for our blackberries and the user would bleed for it.

You don't always cut every cane in the path of your swing. Those you don't cut will be hooked and pull the bramble onto you. Even slightly hooking strokes with a machete are a problem. You wouldn't swing that thing for 5 minutes at one of our brambles. And if you did you would have either accomplished nothing with soft useless swings or you would have pull the wrath of the bramble down on you.

I know you know hand tools but you clearly don't know NW blackberry brambles.
 
I've already admitted not having personal experience with your sort of blackberry brambles, but I do have experience with cutting canes of similar consistency and do understand the dynamics of that sort of springy, draping growth. I fully reserve the right to be wrong, but I'm fairly confident I could tackle that stuff with a properly thin-edged corn hook. It zips right through springy branches and fibrous stalks almost as if they aren't there. The blade stock is only about 1mm or so thick and single-beveled at about a 15° total edge angle.
 
Old Biker said:
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This is what I use on blackberries. I can chop with it like a machete, or reach in with hooked tip to get an individual troublesome cane. The long handle lets me keep my hand farther away from the thorns. Because blackberries are very good at punishing you with their thorns.

The knife as I understand it, is a traditional work knife, of the Khasi tribe of northeast India.

O.B.
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What is the overall length of that knife?
 
Mr.Wizard said:
Freedom Pullo Freedom Pullo which did you come to prefer, the sable or guarizama?

O ocnLogan any new lessons learned since 2018? Have you tried one of the lighter or longer styles of machete just mentioned?
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The Sable, it had better reach. I eventually cut tunnels with a 4 stroke Stihl Kombi brush cutter and grubbed out swaths of blackberry with heavy nylon rope and an old diesel 1 ton.
 
Barteaux used to make a machete with a kinda squared off D shaped plastic handle that protected your knuckles somewhat.

As you guy probably know, himalaya berries grow in a 2 year cycle. A root cluster will put out expansion canes that grow 7-10 feet or more their first year. The second year, they set fruit. Then they die, and provide a “scaffolding” for next year’s expansion canes.

When you see those huge domes of blackberry patch in the summer, the live part is just in the upper and outer 24” or so. All underneath that is dead canes from previous years.

If you want to grow a berry crop, clear out the dead canes in the fall and cut the expansion canes back to 5 or 6 feet tall and stake them. Your next year’s yield will be double or more.

Parker
 
I’ve got a couple shorter Barteaux machetes (about 16-18”) but the 24 is my favorite for blackberries. I dress it with a bastard file, gives it a raggedy jaggedy edge that seems appropriate for that kind of whacking. I carry the file with me for quick touchups.

I usually cut lanes through my thickets, and trim the edges, not trying to eradicate them. They provide food and shelter for lots of small wildlife. They often grow up along old fence lines, so there’s wire and rusty old steel posts in places.

Now is the time of year to do it too, when the leaves are down and you can see what you’ve got to work with. Gives a nice break from pruning the fruit trees.

Parker
 
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