H1Spyderco Machete?

[Fireman]

A machete society is a polite society. Maybe I’ll just Velcro the sheath to the sun visor for quick deployment or just make the sun visor the sheath The fights on the golf courses are getting worse so a machete will be great if I need to regulate. I was shopping for steel for making a machete in the garage but how do I harden it? That’s got to be tricky being so long and thin. Got to find someone who can heat treat it. I can’t find LC200N that big, 2”x24” max is what I can find. I did find Magna Cut 3”x24 but I found other cheaper stainless steels longer up to 36”. So, where to harden is the quandary.

[Fireman]

Ok, my Tramontina is dangerously sharp thanks to the famous Russian sharpening system and that’s one reason I like it as much as I do. I have sharpening ADHD and all my knives, axes and plethora of machete are shaving sharp. I’m going to do a chisel grind on my Tramontina on the back side with a belt sander and my commie TSProf. I have a theory that the single bevel chisel grind would bite into wood better and have no chance of glancing off. The fun will be making that handle more ergonomically friendly and for using both sides.

[Jeb]

Fireman,

I have my machete with the SE and all the sharpening from one side, thinking as you, it would help with the cutting abilities.

I have a new even more coarse SE pattern with rounded teeth instead of pointed. This SE centerline is ground in at around 1.5" centerline grind now instead of .75" and I added a few more teeth, to lengthen the SE cut.

Still have a little more to get the finish grind in this new cut I'm doing, soon as I get the time to finish these new teeth ground in I got to get my phone and shoot some pix of and tack it up here.

I will have to admit though, I think a PE grind is probably going to work the best. I just wanted to try the SE one more time to be positive about its ability or lack there of lol...

Then once I see if this last SE pattern is tried, then I will know if the SE works for my machete or not. I am glad to see this thread is still going and growing with info for us all.

[JoviAl]

I’m on holiday this week and was sick as a dog last week with influenza then tonsillitis, but am really looking forward to finally testing the SE and PE machetes back to back next week once I’m back at work. I have a 20 tonne order of woodchip, topsoil, chicken manure and blood and bone being delivered so I’ve got to manually apply that first, but I’m really looking forward to getting back on the testing

[Jeb]

As promised here is two pix of still in a roughed in condition, as the rest of the work I'm doing with a large half-round hand file. So it's slow.

My fear with this, it's not made from good enough steel for a machete. I already know I have several I-Hoes and Bullhead shovels made from harder steel.

So the more I work on this piece, the less interested I'm getting. I'm not the person to spend this much time on something that the first small limb and fold over and dog ear the blade of this.

These SE cuts are not perfectly spaced and even, this is chewed in at best and at the amount of time I have on it and it's not as hard as I feared, not sure how much further it's going.

What this will do for me though is tell me if this size of SE shape and spacing will cut clean or if a PE machete is better for me.

The cool thing here if this was to cut clean and not load up, my thinking, a person could field sharpen and clean up the edge in the field with a good half-round hand file.

Now, more importantly I have big GameDay festivities to get all up and fired up around here, as Texas Tech visits Arizona this afternoon at 3 PM and it's on FOX for those of you that wish to follow.

More interested to see how much more of this ridiculous tortilla throwing these children do now that they have changed the rules now to the second warning they get, the team is charged 15 yards and a smooth 100k$ fine to the school.

I have never understood what the throwing of these was all about lol... just something else I guess I am getting to dang old for lol.

[Bill1170]

As promised here is two pix of still in a roughed in condition, as the rest of the work I'm doing with a large half-round hand file. So it's slow.

My fear with this, it's not made from good enough steel for a machete. I already know I have several I-Hoes and Bullhead shovels made from harder steel.

So the more I work on this piece, the less interested I'm getting. I'm not the person to spend this much time on something that the first small limb and fold over and dog ear the blade of this.

These SE cuts are not perfectly spaced and even, this is chewed in at best and at the amount of time I have on it and it's not as hard as I feared, not sure how much further it's going.

What this will do for me though is tell me if this size of SE shape and spacing will cut clean or if a PE machete is better for me.

The cool thing here if this was to cut clean and not load up, my thinking, a person could field sharpen and clean up the edge in the field with a good half-round hand file.

Now, more importantly I have big GameDay festivities to get all up and fired up around here, as Texas Tech visits Arizona this afternoon at 3 PM and it's on FOX for those of you that wish to follow.

More interested to see how much more of this ridiculous tortilla throwing these children do now that they have changed the rules now to the second warning they get, the team is charged 15 yards and a smooth 100k$ fine to the school.

I have never understood what the throwing of these was all about lol... just something else I guess I am getting to dang old for lol.

The “points” between the scallops look very obtuse (large included angle). Is that the same sharpening angle it was at before adding the scallops? Perhaps this is related to the metal being too soft?

Good forged shovels hold an edge pretty well, much better than shovels stamped from sheet metal. I’ve cut many a root with forged shovels and they are excellent tools.

[Jeb]

Bill,

I had to grind off all other SE profiles so this edge is about .5" shorter than the original profile of the Kukri before I tried the first SE.

Honestly though this Kukri just is not made out of anything very good. It's not my first attempt at trying to buy something like this that is worth even the price of a good Sheath for one.

I don't know what the Bullhead shovels I have are made from, I just know if I could get a machete or a Kukri in that same steel that would be an awesome start in the right direction jimo...

I have used my shovels to chop many Mesquite trees out of the ground and never once have I ever jacked one of them up. Even hacking at them in hard packed dirt and rocks.

I just think a machete or Kukri from something like these shovels would make a great tool that you can actually use and not have to hammer out the rolled over edges.

One of these with a Spyderco tattoo on it would be another big plus too lol.

[Fireman]

Probably the best test would be to attach a serrated mule to a looooong handle

[sal]

We've got a drawing started. 16" blade. Longer handle with a long hook on the tail. Skeletonized full tang handle "Mule Team" style. At this time, I think MagnaCut might be the best material. Larrin's "flavor" is proving t be quite the work horse.

sal

[Jeb]

Sal,

That sounds really great to me...

[Bill1170]

We've got a drawing started. 16" blade. Longer handle with a long hook on the tail. Skeletonized full tang handle "Mule Team" style. At this time, I think MagnaCut might be the best material. Larrin's "flavor" is proving t be quite the work horse.

sal

Magnacut will be a massive upgrade from the simple carbon steels typically found in Machetes. The heat treatment will need to be dialed to suit the use case. I’m in for one!

[Fireman]

We've got a drawing started. 16" blade. Longer handle with a long hook on the tail. Skeletonized full tang handle "Mule Team" style. At this time, I think MagnaCut might be the best material. Larrin's "flavor" is proving t be quite the work horse.

sal

So we get to make our own handles?!?! AWESOME

[Fireman]

If Spyderco releases the handle blue print, those with the skills could use cad and convert it to 3D printing program and put it on thingverse for anyone to print.

[vivi]

We've got a drawing started. 16" blade. Longer handle with a long hook on the tail. Skeletonized full tang handle "Mule Team" style. At this time, I think MagnaCut might be the best material. Larrin's "flavor" is proving t be quite the work horse.

sal

I like the sound of that Sal. 16" offers enough length to do work while being easy to belt carry or strap to a pack. Based on my experiences with magnacut I feel like it will be a good choice. Excited to test it out whenever it's ready.

[Fireman]

Way too soon to plan but I’m too excited not to. I have been hand selecting and collecting and oiling heartwood hickory handles for my axe addiction. Maybe I can mod one using my table saw to rip one down the middle and screw it on. I will be getting 2 if possible so I could make one a plain edge Salt-chete with Titanium hardware. These corrosion free super steel gigachad machetes should be popular for bourgeoise jungle survivalists like myself and for yacht pirate defense I’ll definitely bring it sport fishing so I can easily break down large fish. Plastic screw on scales should make cleaning off the fishy smell a breeze.[googlevideo] [/googlevideo]

[Jeb]

I honed these Scallops out and cleaned the chew marks out of this cheap Kukri about enough, it will certainly slice paper easy enough lol.

I still think that the SE profile is best for cutting and the PE is best for your chopping and hacking, now saying that this profile does chop and hack pretty darn good though. It doesn't load up the blade with the limbs and vegetation like the two other smaller profiles I tried.

Those you would get a good bite in but the blade wouldn't come clean through the swing, it was just all loaded up with the vines and limbs in my Case.

This last profile is roughly the size of a quarter and this blade cuts, hacks and chops really well. It's somewhat way more time consuming to hone it out than a PE profile would be and on a blade 16" long and made from MagnaCut, we really want all the help you can get to hone that I figure lol

Here is a couple of pix of it with a quarter laid in the scallop for size reference. A large half-round file works this blade just fine, but this file wouldn't do much but shine on MagnaCut lol.

[Bill1170]

I honed these Scallops out and cleaned the chew marks out of this cheap Kukri about enough, it will certainly slice paper easy enough lol.

I still think that the SE profile is best for cutting and the PE is best for your chopping and hacking, now saying that this profile does chop and hack pretty darn good though. It doesn't load up the blade with the limbs and vegetation like the two other smaller profiles I tried.

Those you would get a good bite in but the blade wouldn't come clean through the swing, it was just all loaded up with the vines and limbs in my Case.

This last profile is roughly the size of a quarter and this blade cuts, hacks and chops really well. It's somewhat way more time consuming to hone it out than a PE profile would be and on a blade 16" long and made from MagnaCut, we really want all the help you can get to hone that I figure lol

Here is a couple of pix of it with a quarter laid in the scallop for size reference. A large half-round file works this blade just fine, but this file wouldn't do much but shine on MagnaCut lol.

Now that you’ve done or nearly done, that’s a huge improvement.

[zhyla]

If Spyderco releases the handle blue print, those with the skills could use cad and convert it to 3D printing program and put it on thingverse for anyone to print.

I can do this or reverse engineer it from a blade in hand. I’m a bit of a CAD whiz.

[mikey177]

I'm cautiously optimistic about a 16-inch MagnaCut blade, mainly because I fear it will be beyond my budget.

5-inch MagnaCut blade models from Bark River already cost $300 or more, so I don't want to guess how much a machete-length model would be.

[Fireman]

If Spyderco releases the handle blue print, those with the skills could use cad and convert it to 3D printing program and put it on thingverse for anyone to print.

I can do this or reverse engineer it from a blade in hand. I’m a bit of a CAD whiz.

I think we need your help in this for sure. Do you upload to Thingverse? Once we can establish the hole diameters we can figure out fasteners and cad accordingly. I hope the holes are the same diameter as the Mule. Would make things easier if we can use the same hardware. Hope it’s possible to make a hidden lanyard in the butt and perhaps use the trademark Spydie hole to lash a forward lanyard to a rear lanyard so the machete can be secure and can be used for longer time with less hand fatigue due to not having to keep a constant strong grip.