-
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.
Machete for Cliff Stamp
- Thread starter bznthor
- Start date
- Joined
- Apr 27, 1999
- Messages
- 6,117
Let me butt in a little here. It is going to depend somewhat on the material you are cutting. If you are cutting hard wood with hard knots in it you want a smooth edge and a bit more obtuse final edge. The tramontina is thin and made of a soft alloy. It is very common to get part of the edge bent over sideways if you cut into hard material at an angle and/or hit a knot. If you were trimming up to about 3 cm thick limbs off of hardwood trees I would use a bevel like 20 to 25 degrees per side (40 to 50 degree included angle).
The thin blade of a Tramontina will get wedged into any wood that you cannot cut through in a single stroke. If it is hard and more than 10 cm in diameter it will be tiresome to use a thin machete on it.
What a Tramontina is really best at is cutting trough light weight material like grasses, reeds, bushes, and vines. These materials are soft and flexible. They will tend to be pushed back by impact of a blade and not allow much force to be applied to the cutting action. You need a longer, lighter, faster, and thinner blade for these materials. A low honing angle will be best. You can hardly go too low. I would sharpen to more like 10 to 15 degrees for primary bevel with a slight secondary bevel a few degrees higher to protect the very edge. If you are cutting fibrous materials it may be helpful to leave the edge a little bit rough. Finish the edge by honing or stropping on an abrasive with about 220 grit. This will allow some force to be concentrated on cutting through a fiber that is embedded in softer material. If sort of a slashing stroke is used the rough edge can be particularly effective on fibrous material. If the material is full of resinous juices this won't work since the coarse edge finish will fill up with resin. In that case a smooth edge is best. Try not to let resin dry on the blade.
The thin blade of a Tramontina will get wedged into any wood that you cannot cut through in a single stroke. If it is hard and more than 10 cm in diameter it will be tiresome to use a thin machete on it.
What a Tramontina is really best at is cutting trough light weight material like grasses, reeds, bushes, and vines. These materials are soft and flexible. They will tend to be pushed back by impact of a blade and not allow much force to be applied to the cutting action. You need a longer, lighter, faster, and thinner blade for these materials. A low honing angle will be best. You can hardly go too low. I would sharpen to more like 10 to 15 degrees for primary bevel with a slight secondary bevel a few degrees higher to protect the very edge. If you are cutting fibrous materials it may be helpful to leave the edge a little bit rough. Finish the edge by honing or stropping on an abrasive with about 220 grit. This will allow some force to be concentrated on cutting through a fiber that is embedded in softer material. If sort of a slashing stroke is used the rough edge can be particularly effective on fibrous material. If the material is full of resinous juices this won't work since the coarse edge finish will fill up with resin. In that case a smooth edge is best. Try not to let resin dry on the blade.
Cliff Stamp
BANNED
- Joined
- Oct 5, 1998
- Messages
- 17,562
Jeff as usual gave an excellent answer. Regarding the machetes, Tramontina does make a wide variety of types some are as Jeff described, some however, like the bolo patterns are much heavier being of thicker blade stock with wide tips. These can work decently well on thick wood as long as it is soft like Pine or most Fir, and can easily chew through ~6" wood. On hard woods it will wedge badly, and on black spruce and such I would want a much thicker blade, for power as well as to reduce binding. You really start to want a decent axe for that type of wood.
In regards to grit, just as Jeff described regarding polish and coarse. There are no really fiberous vegetation around here so my machetes just get as high a polish as I can apply. As a side note, due to being fairly soft, it can be frustrating to apply a high polished crisp edge to a machete. If you can, then there is no steel which will give you a burr problem, as machetes are among the worst and most difficult to sharpen in this regard. However if you can get a really high sharpness, you will notice the difference in cutting ability, light vegetation is one of the most responsive types of cutting in this regard.
I would also agree with the angles Jeff noted, personally I would go a little thinner, but not by a lot. What I would clearify though is that most machetes should have at least two edge grinds, one should be very wide, about an inch and this should be low, about five degrees, the other should be the secondary edge bevel and be at the angles Jeff noted and be about 1/8" wide. This dual sharpening profile will greatly increase cutting ability and reduce wedging. The primary wide grind can be just cut with a file and doesn't need to be refined further.
-Cliff
In regards to grit, just as Jeff described regarding polish and coarse. There are no really fiberous vegetation around here so my machetes just get as high a polish as I can apply. As a side note, due to being fairly soft, it can be frustrating to apply a high polished crisp edge to a machete. If you can, then there is no steel which will give you a burr problem, as machetes are among the worst and most difficult to sharpen in this regard. However if you can get a really high sharpness, you will notice the difference in cutting ability, light vegetation is one of the most responsive types of cutting in this regard.
I would also agree with the angles Jeff noted, personally I would go a little thinner, but not by a lot. What I would clearify though is that most machetes should have at least two edge grinds, one should be very wide, about an inch and this should be low, about five degrees, the other should be the secondary edge bevel and be at the angles Jeff noted and be about 1/8" wide. This dual sharpening profile will greatly increase cutting ability and reduce wedging. The primary wide grind can be just cut with a file and doesn't need to be refined further.
-Cliff