WINNER ANNOUNCED!!!!CONTEST! A teaspoon of bushcraft makes the machete go down..

[shotgunner11]

Been trying to get a bit more comfortable with a machete lately.

I've always just looked at a machete as a brute force type of a tool, clearing brush, chopping and the like but watching some native peoples work with them on a daily basis made me realize how inadequate my skills with them really were.

The local mexicans that I work with everyday use their machete to do just about everything from processing fish and whittling to cutting and shaping sod while landscaping.

Anyway, I decided to screw around a bit and I set the goal for myself of making a spoon with just a machete.

Trial and error led to multiple broken spoons, a few nice cuts, alot of burns and finally....a crappy, overbuilt spoon.

(yea, I overdid it on the burning part.....shut up.)

It was a good learning experience. I got much better at the fine chopping needed for detailed work and I got much more comfortable with the machete overall. I feel more comfortable using it everyday. (Plus I impressed the hell out of my mexican friends with my cool assed spoon.)

So, your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to do some carving with a machete. Make something cool. Spoons work, bowls, a totem pole, no sex toys please, thanks.

Run the contest for 2 weeks, mods are judging, Gold members or higher, ESEE and Bladeforums have no legal resposibility for your actions, if you get hurt, sorry, be more careful next time.....yada, yada, yada....

Prize is a Lite Machete!

Go!

 

[Mike Slayer]

This sounds like fun. I am not a gold member yet but I will be sometime in the next couple weeks. Money is tight for somebody that just lost their job. I look at it as a survival test. Now the question is what to make. A set of eating tools and a bowl sounds like a start.

 

[trix2004]

can I use Junglas ? i dont have machete

 

[Wanderlust]

Well I do use a Lite Machete every day, utility planner, so I will have to see what I can do and come up with at work. I have made a lot of nice hiking staffs the past couple of weeks but thats way to easy. Thanks for the opportunity I'll see what i come up with.

 

[Wanderlust]

can I use Junglas ? i dont have machete

I don't think you have to use the ESEE machete I think you can use any machete, the mods will have to jump in to confirm, but I think the idea is to get comfortable with the machete in general and to learn some new skills.

 

[Mike Slayer]

The Junglas is called a machete on the ESEE knives website. I would say it was a go but the mods have the final say.

 

[stjones]

can I use Junglas ? I don't have machete

I don't have a machete of any sort or the Junglas. I DO have a Scrap Yard Combat Grade Dog Father. Will that suffice?

 

[Joe Fowler]

Looks good Mike. One thing I saw someone do was burn the "bowl" of the spoon first then carve around it. Might work better.

 

[killstew]

Sounds like a great little contest. Maybe I will actually get off my duff & do this one.

 

[shotgunner11]

Ok, ok, use only a big asses blade. A chopper, let's say 9" blade length and up.

 

[stjones]

^^^COOL!!! DF works for that!!!^^^

 

[Battle Creek Knives]

personally I'd say anything under 12" wouldn't be classified as a machete.. kinda gives the guys using a 'machete' the disadvantage with detail work..

just saying..

 

[tonym]

(yea, I overdid it on the burning part.....shut up.)


!

OK I'll be nice..



Cool contest. :thumbup:

 

[freedoom]

If i accidentally whittle my finger off will you throw in a new one if i win?

 

[Shotgun]

Heck yes I'm down. Get my mind off things. Although it's now the type of weather where it won't be comfy whittling. Before I could do it on the deck in the sun. Now I'll have to do it in the garage in the cold. Do I get bonus points for doing it in the rain? Will you start a seperate entry thread or is this it?

 

[wolffbite]

If i accidentally whittle my finger off will you throw in a new one if i win?

Well, I bet it'll be off of a hog cadaver....

 

[Zombie Zeke]

I'm in got a 24" Tramantino to break in.

 

[trix2004]

ok i did the spoon , will post pics soon ,

 

[rodloos]

Leonardo DaVinci I'm not. I can make a mean hiking stick but man, trying to envision something fancy in the wood and carve it out is proving to be difficult for me.

No one will accuse me of being a sculptor, but I'm going to have *something* carved to enter somehow. So far all I've managed to do is get the bark peeled off, and not lose a finger doing it .

 

[Mistwalker]

Well, I've already done this once with a 12" Fiddleback machete recently for the spoon contest...

But then used a smaller Fiddleback to clean it up before burning it out, and to finish it up with.

I guess I can make something else for this...maybe something more in line with what might be done with a machete in an actual rain forest

.