- Joined
- Mar 8, 2008
- Messages
- 25,979
It's not that hard, man. Literally if you've already been cutting other targets you just use one of the ones you already cut.
Did I say the world would fall on your head?
No. I said that there are techniques that can help you still do the job swiftly without dinging your edge up. The better you keep the edge the easier the work, and as long as you have more techniques in your tool kit it helps you prevent avoidable damage that slows that work down or causes it to require more energy to accomplish. Occasionally experiencing edge damage is just a thing that happens, but it typically happens due to mistakes rather than people deliberately trying to damage their edges.You're free to do whatever the heck you want. Literally all I'm saying is that there's options to prevent dinging your blade up like lots of folks are seemingly doing on the regular. I've used all of these methods and despite using a machete frequently can only remember one major accident clearly. It was when I worked doing municipal stormwater system inspection and was trying to find one of the outlets in an overgrown grassy wetland area and was clearing the grass with an older Cold Steel barong when I smacked the tip hard enough into a rock that blended in with the muddy ground badly enough that it bent the tip straight backwards. I struck the same rock with the spine of the tip to bend it back in place and roughly stropped the damaged edge on its domed surface to at least restore a ragged semblance of an edge because I needed the tip working well to cut grass with less effort with that particular model since it wasn't an ideal match to the task (but it was what was in my car at the time) and I carried on. Other than that I can't remember the last time I hit a rock with one of my machetes, and that was years ago.
I've hit more small stones with my scythes than I ever have with machetes, mostly because of how much lower the edge rides, but the damage is usually from small loose rocks rather than immobile ones, and irons out quickly as a result since scything is low force. It's closer to the damage caused to a kitchen knife that gently knocks against a juice glass by the sink than a full-bore whack. When I encounter such stones I remove them so that the next time I mow I don't repeat the encounter. Immobile embedded stones I make mental note of and keep extra watch for them in the work the next time 'round.
