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which machete??
- Thread starter RescueRiley
- Start date
yea! the drug crazed dudes are the scary ones for sure. You're right, no messing with guys that are intent to kill you, gloves or not. How about the tasers though?
Yes. He made them for me and my mach~axe roundup. Here's the latest and final addition to the band of 8 !
wow, very nice :thumbup:how about a taser? if i had one, maybe, but, im not sure id wanna meet lethal force, with a less than lethal one lol. its not how i was trained. and boy is that a nice tool there. id like to have that on a wall somewhere. id be too afraid to mess it up while using it.
Allan Molstad
Banned
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2007
- Messages
- 901
Could you tell me the thinking behind the use of a bend to the back as seen in the photos?
Which photos? Which Blade?Parang Bandol?Mach~Axe?
I have a short answer and the very long answer will wait for me to do the computer modeling.
Think of a baseball bat's shape. It's a club -yes. If you flattened it, the energy transfer would be as it is in the Parang Bandol. Blade is .250" at the base and tapers to the front to .125" This makes it really much stronger at the base than your eye wants you to believe! Now, to answer your question, why is the spine arched. It's arched because that's what you get when you make the front end so much wider than the base of the blade. The result is that power from the heavier rear is suddenly trasfered to the fore on the downswing, delivering most of it along a 6" stretch of the blade's edge!
The distal taper from rear to front also compensates for what would otherwise be an overly front heavy blade, which would make it a pain to use in the real world of harvesting and processing ( coconuts etc) . My computer model will confirm or refute this hypothesis. I want to visually show energy being stored in the wind-up and then transfered to the fore as a result of the blade design. Not only this, but the wider front is handy when processing material- as the cut from the edge is continued through the material by the wide section- which acts as a quide. Kinda like in a chinese cleaver. I think it's an ugly profile aesthetically- but if only you could handle it! You can chop and chop all day long with this baby!Woo Hoo!
Think of a baseball bat's shape. It's a club -yes. If you flattened it, the energy transfer would be as it is in the Parang Bandol. Blade is .250" at the base and tapers to the front to .125" This makes it really much stronger at the base than your eye wants you to believe! Now, to answer your question, why is the spine arched. It's arched because that's what you get when you make the front end so much wider than the base of the blade. The result is that power from the heavier rear is suddenly trasfered to the fore on the downswing, delivering most of it along a 6" stretch of the blade's edge!
The distal taper from rear to front also compensates for what would otherwise be an overly front heavy blade, which would make it a pain to use in the real world of harvesting and processing ( coconuts etc) . My computer model will confirm or refute this hypothesis. I want to visually show energy being stored in the wind-up and then transfered to the fore as a result of the blade design. Not only this, but the wider front is handy when processing material- as the cut from the edge is continued through the material by the wide section- which acts as a quide. Kinda like in a chinese cleaver. I think it's an ugly profile aesthetically- but if only you could handle it! You can chop and chop all day long with this baby!Woo Hoo!
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Mach~Axe - A question regarding blade length in relation to operator/user anthropometrics.
My thesis was pretty much hammered down in January 2007, prior to sending the drawings out for prototyping. The rules vary for the type of blade- weight/length/height and geometry all being impinging factors.
In creating my variation on the Parang/Bolo/Machete, I was adamant on zeroing in on the geometry that most effectively supported efficiency.
So once I established the SHAPE of the blade, based on the varied tasks of Chopping and Clearing and Defending, it was just a matter of adjusting the height of the blade in relation to the length. during our experiments with various users and various blade lengths, we discovered that due to the principle of compound leverage, there's a 'Magic' length for each operator that maximizes efficiency , while minimizing blade weight & length.
What I did was reverse engineer that number by comparing it to various limb lengths & proportions of the user's strong arm.
By coincidence, it turned out that by measuring the distance between the user's bent elbow and the crook of the opened thumb, we could correspond it to the ideal chop/clear blade length for each individual user.
This sort of formula is used in Japan when ordering Chef's knives, and particularly, Sushi Knives.
We only got as far as figuring it out for my Mach~Axe, though I'm certain the same type of logic can be used for any tool that depends on compound leverage.
Most of this was posted on Knifeforums.com in Jan. 2007. Justin deleted the posts, but I have them all archived for the record.
I hope that explains everything. Thanks for asking.
Mach~Axe - A question regarding blade length in relation to operator/user anthropometrics.
My thesis was pretty much hammered down in January 2007, prior to sending the drawings out for prototyping. The rules vary for the type of blade- weight/length/height and geometry all being impinging factors.
In creating my variation on the Parang/Bolo/Machete, I was adamant on zeroing in on the geometry that most effectively supported efficiency.
So once I established the SHAPE of the blade, based on the varied tasks of Chopping and Clearing and Defending, it was just a matter of adjusting the height of the blade in relation to the length. during our experiments with various users and various blade lengths, we discovered that due to the principle of compound leverage, there's a 'Magic' length for each operator that maximizes efficiency , while minimizing blade weight & length.
What I did was reverse engineer that number by comparing it to various limb lengths & proportions of the user's strong arm.
By coincidence, it turned out that by measuring the distance between the user's bent elbow and the crook of the opened thumb, we could correspond it to the ideal chop/clear blade length for each individual user.
This sort of formula is used in Japan when ordering Chef's knives, and particularly, Sushi Knives.
We only got as far as figuring it out for my Mach~Axe, though I'm certain the same type of logic can be used for any tool that depends on compound leverage.
Most of this was posted on Knifeforums.com in Jan. 2007. Justin deleted the posts, but I have them all archived for the record.
I hope that explains everything. Thanks for asking.
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2005
- Messages
- 4,363
Get a Tramontina. They are thin, but they work. BTW: they made a 12" model. I have a trunk full of machetes, Collins, Ontarios, Condors, Cold Steel, Galivan, Becker, and others. The thin, light Tramontinas work best. I use them all summer long every year, so I know what works. The heavy Ontarios will wear you out and they occasionally will snap in two. Their 12" is fine, but for the longer ones, I much prefer the $6.00 Tramontinas, some of which I have used for eight years.
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2005
- Messages
- 4,363
The Ka-Bar Cutlass machete is an excellent chopper. It is a poor machete, though. Too heavy and too short for effective path clearing through thick brush. For all-around use the Ontario 12" machete works better. There are some machetes that can chop reasonably well, but few choppers that make good machetes. Some of the lighter ones will, like the old Collins #18 Bowie machete (similar to the Case and Western bowies). Scrap Yard's Dog Father LE (16 oz) works reasonably well both in chopping and clearing as do some of the cheap CS Kukris. Browning's Crowell-Barker competiton knife does pretty well, too.