Quick and dirty little light machete.

Hickory n steel

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Feb 11, 2016
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I had an old late 50's Craftsman ripsaw blade laying around that just couldn't be made into a functional saw again for a few reasons, so I decided to cut a small light machete from it.


It's really thin and really light , but it rings like crazy and took a great edge.
With how old handsaws we're meant to be sharpened I'd imagine it'll hold an edge ok being used to take out weeds and stuff, but time will tell as I didn't do any tempering or anything.
So far I'm liking the really broad shape i went with.
 
It's a neat idea(other than being a bit on the light side maybe,for some stuff).

Carpenter's saws are mostly heat-treated throughout.
(They're also peened to spring back to their shape,as in stretched along the perimeter like a drum-head of sorts,so can possibly distort when cut to an odd shape).
It'd be difficult to re-HT,because of thinness of material,but it's easy to retain the original temper.
For that a plasma cutter works great,only about 1/8-3/16" gets ruined along the edge(that'll go away quickly with sharpening anyway).
Another good method is to score lines as close as one may come to the curved shape desired,with a file,and then break along these scored lines.
Then what's left can be ground off with an angle-grinder,carefully,without overheating.

(i just happen to live in an area where it's a long tradition to make the local style of butcher knives out of carpenter saws).
 
It's a neat idea(other than being a bit on the light side maybe,for some stuff).

Carpenter's saws are mostly heat-treated throughout.
(They're also peened to spring back to their shape,as in stretched along the perimeter like a drum-head of sorts,so can possibly distort when cut to an odd shape).
It'd be difficult to re-HT,because of thinness of material,but it's easy to retain the original temper.
For that a plasma cutter works great,only about 1/8-3/16" gets ruined along the edge(that'll go away quickly with sharpening anyway).
Another good method is to score lines as close as one may come to the curved shape desired,with a file,and then break along these scored lines.
Then what's left can be ground off with an angle-grinder,carefully,without overheating.

(i just happen to live in an area where it's a long tradition to make the local style of butcher knives out of carpenter saws).

Yeah, I've made something before by scoring and snapping but had some cracking the first go around.

I knew this would be super lightweight, but I mostly made it to clear light weeds around my airgun backstop area in my backyard.

I'm stull undecided , but I may shape the handle down some more.
 
Looks like it should be real nice for lush vegetation. :)
 
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