- Joined
- Apr 13, 2001
- Messages
- 546
I decided to build my bean trellises this year using wire, pipe and bamboo. I thought it might be a chance to give the new KSF Machete a work out but at the last minute I picked up my BRK&T Golok as well.
When we got to our regular bamboo patch we found it had been bush hogged to the ground a few months ago and the new canes were only head high and finger thick. I remembered a patch of giant Chinese bamboo next to a rock quarry nearby so we went over to check it out.
When we got there we found bamboo that ranged from the size of your finger to the size of a peck bucket!! Some of this bamboo would make excellent buckets and containers if you could dry it with out it splitting. My son and I cut about 50 stalks. 25 or so were about the size of a hoe handle and the rest about the size of a man's arm. Cutting them included felling, cleaning off limbs and topping. We strapped the bundle to the back of my Nissan pickup. Some of the stalks were 25 to 30 feet long so I put flags of orange surveyor's tape on some of them for safety.
When we got home we trimmed them to length using the Golok and the KSF Machete. I drove pipe for the ends of the trellises, ran a top wire and tied bamboo canes making a V shape from the top wire to the ground. This took most of the smaller canes. The larger canes I tied together in a dozen bundles and made tepees on the side of the garden. We will grow gourds and cucumbers on these.
The Golok and the KSF Machete performed in stellar fashion. Most cuts were single chop cuts even on green bamboo the size of your arm. Every once in a while I would flub the angle on a cut and have to chop several times to make it thru but that was me not the knife. I noticed the machete did not take to the thicker green bamboo as well as the golok did. It bound up in the cuts and sometimes took an effort to remove it from cuts halfway thru a section of giant bamboo. The golok, on the other hand, would sometimes only make it halfway thru but it took zero effort to raise the blade and chop again. I think the machete is better suited to briers than bamboo. However, we found it just the ticket to limb canes and lop off the tops.
I regret we were so busy that no pictures were taken. I plan to set up a chop off using the Golok, Machete, and several large knives and hatchets. We will film that and take some still shots as well. That stand of bamboo covers about 5 acres and has inspired me to do some cutting.
Oh yeah after 1/2 a day of heavy cutting both blades would still slice pasteboard. They dragged on free hanging paper but 8 or ten passes on a chromium dioxide charged hone hand them both slicing free hanging news print again.
One observation; when I started both knives were razor sharp. They actually seemed to chop better after the first dozen or so cuts. I can still hear the PING, PING of those blades cleanly cutting that green bamboo.
A sharp blade is a joy to work with.
When we got to our regular bamboo patch we found it had been bush hogged to the ground a few months ago and the new canes were only head high and finger thick. I remembered a patch of giant Chinese bamboo next to a rock quarry nearby so we went over to check it out.
When we got there we found bamboo that ranged from the size of your finger to the size of a peck bucket!! Some of this bamboo would make excellent buckets and containers if you could dry it with out it splitting. My son and I cut about 50 stalks. 25 or so were about the size of a hoe handle and the rest about the size of a man's arm. Cutting them included felling, cleaning off limbs and topping. We strapped the bundle to the back of my Nissan pickup. Some of the stalks were 25 to 30 feet long so I put flags of orange surveyor's tape on some of them for safety.
When we got home we trimmed them to length using the Golok and the KSF Machete. I drove pipe for the ends of the trellises, ran a top wire and tied bamboo canes making a V shape from the top wire to the ground. This took most of the smaller canes. The larger canes I tied together in a dozen bundles and made tepees on the side of the garden. We will grow gourds and cucumbers on these.
The Golok and the KSF Machete performed in stellar fashion. Most cuts were single chop cuts even on green bamboo the size of your arm. Every once in a while I would flub the angle on a cut and have to chop several times to make it thru but that was me not the knife. I noticed the machete did not take to the thicker green bamboo as well as the golok did. It bound up in the cuts and sometimes took an effort to remove it from cuts halfway thru a section of giant bamboo. The golok, on the other hand, would sometimes only make it halfway thru but it took zero effort to raise the blade and chop again. I think the machete is better suited to briers than bamboo. However, we found it just the ticket to limb canes and lop off the tops.
I regret we were so busy that no pictures were taken. I plan to set up a chop off using the Golok, Machete, and several large knives and hatchets. We will film that and take some still shots as well. That stand of bamboo covers about 5 acres and has inspired me to do some cutting.
Oh yeah after 1/2 a day of heavy cutting both blades would still slice pasteboard. They dragged on free hanging paper but 8 or ten passes on a chromium dioxide charged hone hand them both slicing free hanging news print again.
One observation; when I started both knives were razor sharp. They actually seemed to chop better after the first dozen or so cuts. I can still hear the PING, PING of those blades cleanly cutting that green bamboo.
A sharp blade is a joy to work with.
