what do you use a panga for ?

Myal

Myal

Joined
Jun 7, 2003
Messages
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Im curious

I understand machetes , I under stand the little sickles , folders , and a bunch of fixed blade knives of various shape and use

but right now Im looking at a box of pangas ( long story , looooong story , dont ask ) wondering what the hell they are good for ?

any help would be appreciated .
 
Looks like fishing according to Google. :confused: You got a pic?
Fish_Coop_Pangas_760.jpg
 
A panga is a style of machete, come on guys.

5_10321.jpg


Light vegetation, and softer materials, grasses ect.
 
Im curious to know if there is any reason for the weird looking point / flat front .
 
Myal said:
Im curious to know if there is any reason for the weird looking point / flat front .
Click to expand...

flat as in not sharpend?. Saftey would be my best guess, but these are made for sweeping cuts, meant for thin branches, and vegitation. Can you tell is the edge has been modified? Or where that created in that manner.

Also the mass at the tip gives some weight behind the sweet spots on these, which is at the tip.
 
These are new , blunt as blunt can be .
Its hard to tell what part is supposed to be sharp and what is meant to be blunt , I know this maker has a rep for bluntness but these are extreme blunt ...

There is a bit of a grind partway around the curve , maybe its supposed to be sharp ?
 
Could well be ... Im going to have to sharpen a couple up and play with them :)
Thank you for your help
 
You might of been able to get a straight answer years ago, when there were specialty patterns for all sorts of things. Hawkbill machetes were popular for coffee harvesting, long double edge flairing edged models were popular in areas of Mexico for a certain type of grass, Safety patterns made for Cuba, etc.....

The Collins Company once cataloged 1000 plus patterns of machete. Somewhere along the line, the lines were trimed back to a handful of patterns.

The Panga has always been a popular style in Africa for some reason. The turned up snout seems to work well for de-barking trees from what I've seen.

The term Panga seems to have lost a bit of its meaning also, now everything from Simi knives to standard bolo knives, to just plain big knives go by that term according to my African friends.
 
Bob, you are absolutely right , there are a huge number of designs for jungle knives throughout the world . Some features very practical and some just local tastes.Panga in Africa has been used to cut various plants and as a weapon too !
 
Les called his matchete a panga, but it didn't look anything like the ones posted above. The one he used looked like a heavy machete from Cold Steel, although I don't know if they ever made one with a wooden handle.
 
panga is the African machette.i'm sure they were used to cut sugar cane as well,probably still is,and is used on farms
 
Pangas are kinda the weapon of choice with many of the thugs in various African countries, when butchering their fellow countrymen, women, and children. Seems to do quite an efficient job on human flesh and bones, witness the hundreds of thousand of people who have been chopped to pieces over the years in Kenya, Rawanda, Darfur, the Congo, etc., etc., etc.

L.W.
 
I love Pangas. I have a badass one from Martindale.

I was watching Blood Diamond with my wife. In the beginning of the movie, the African male lead runs to his burning village to save his family, he grabs a sugar cane machete, squared tip. The director contrasted scene with a leader of the Paramilitary group who had a Panga. It was pure type casting, the kind we all bitch about here in the USA.

If you go to a third world country that machete blade design is ubiquitous (found everywhere) With a slight variation. They are used for woodcutting, kindling,and farming. Since they are everywhere they can be used for killing people too.
 
For committing genocide I don't think it matters one bit as to the shape of the blade, it's the twisted mind that does the damage.

That style isn't found here in my area and cane here is cut with a dedicated long handle, broad, noisy, thin, blade with a hook on the back for pulling the cut cane. Mac
 
Hi guys,

We in South America use similar blades for a variety of things. I this case, the blade usually is sharpened in the upper half and some guys sharpen the back in order to use it as a hawk bill.


BTW, they almost always come ultra blunt, just a simple sheet of steel.
Saludos,

Alejandro
 
Fonly said:
A panga is a style of machete, come on guys.

Light vegetation, and softer materials, grasses ect.
Click to expand...
I had no idea what it was and plugged it into Google. I just thought someone would get a kick out of what popped up...my bad.:D
 
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