To Storyville:
For a long working session, the real trick is to be both light and balanced but stiff enough to reduce vibration to a degree you can live with. The 3/16th and full height grind seem to give the right balance. And the blade is thin for the slice and thick for vibrating damping. Watching Steve go through that gum tree was a real treat.
To John Johnson:
I agree that it was past time. I have been wanting to do this for years and Camillus had the right piece of equipment and the vision
good people! The first few inches of recurve (from the point) will be sweet
VERY sweet!
To Cliff Stamp:
One of the finest tools I have ever held was a homebrew Philipino "parang." A fairly thin edge, a fairly thick spine, and a 12-14" blade. It belonged to Dr. Kevlar (Mel Otten, M.D.) the great guru of emergency medicine
and the even greater guru of "environmental hazards" and wilderness survival.
Cliff, to answer your last post
The Becker Hog slices through kudzu, a notoriously tricky vine to cut because it is so light and soft a blade tends to brush it out of the way. It goes through hardwood like a champ without edge deformation. And it slices and dices bamboo and bush honeysuckle, a nasty brittle and unpredictable target. No the Bush Hog is not a geology pick
it acts just like cutlery steel when you hit rocks.
About the handle
I see no reason that it will not work on the machete when it has gotten good reviews on the Machax and the Brute, both hacking and whacking tools.
As far as a choice between the two machetes? Obviously the Becker Bush Hog. The Ontario is a fine tool in its price range, but the combination of features that the Bush Hog offersthe increased comfort, better performance on both small and large diameter targetsput it IMHO into a totally new class of factory machetes. Try it, Cliff. Youll like it.
A note at this point on testing: as of this week there were two Becker Bush Hogs in existence. In a short time, there will be enough to indulge in some really destructive testing and Will and I both will be finding the outer limits of the Becker Hogs performance envelope and reporting in then. Although I must say that watching Steve Dick taking BIG chunks out of that poor gum tree both impressed upon me that my technique could use some improvement and that the Becker Bush Hog was no shrinking violet.
Ethan Becker
[This message has been edited by Ethan Becker (edited 10-31-2000).]
[This message has been edited by Ethan Becker (edited 10-31-2000).]
