wheelgunslinger
Member
This tool worked really well for me so far.
This time of year is when the briars are growing full speed ahead, and most established trails begin to get choked with them as they take advantage of being first in the spring growth race.
It had no real trouble hacking briars. The smaller ones tended to rebound and not be cut, but the large ones were cleanly cut away with an easy stroke. They're the ones you worry about anyway, so the small ones are no big deal. No big briars, no problem.
Cutting deadfall out of trails, as long as it was small enough, was no sweat. It chopped through red oak, hickory, and even dead hardwoods that would rather shatter than be cut cleanly. It also did great limbing conifers for pine boughs or chopping overgrown saplings to clear a trail.
I used the Parang to fashion some crude stakes from some fallen white oak that had been sitting around. I choked up on the blade, holding it by the area above the orange grip, and cut with the blade area closest to the grip.
The blade's weight helps it cut when you chop with it, and the end weight of the blade helps keep it balanced when you're doing more exacting work with the mid or lower blade sections.
Cons:
You get some hand shock when you chop with it, but that's kind of how it goes with a full tang cutting tool that has a plastic grip. Still. If you're shock or recoil sensitive, you may not want this.
Horizontal cutting is a bit difficult if you're used to using a machete. The weight works against you. It shines in vertical or 1-40ish* angular cuts, mostly because of the weight. This makes it a poor tool, somewhat, for horizontal chopping. Though, I have to admit that the trail maintenance and camp tasks I've had it doing didn't require that. I was just doing horizontal cuts to see how it felt and reacted.
The blade shape makes sheathing and unsheathing it a bit of an exercise, given the design of the sheath itself. Granted, I'm not Inigo Montoya. I don't need to whip the Parang out at a moment's notice, so I didn't sweat it too much, but the volume and frequency of briars had me using it and then putting it back until I tired of the ritual and just hung it from my wrist by the lanyard.
All in all, a useful tool that answers the riddle I've had for some time wherein I wanted a machete when I carried a tomahawk and a tomahawk when I carried a machete.
It can hammer with the blade flat. It can dig a cathole. It can split open a coconut with the back of the blade. It chops well. It handles brush well. And, it manages to not dull the moment you start using it. Seems like a nice camp or "survival" tool for my part of the Southern Appalachians as it's well suited to the woody surrounds and the tasks one encounters here.
So far, so good for this tool.
I'm ready to take it on my next weekender and see what happens.
This time of year is when the briars are growing full speed ahead, and most established trails begin to get choked with them as they take advantage of being first in the spring growth race.
It had no real trouble hacking briars. The smaller ones tended to rebound and not be cut, but the large ones were cleanly cut away with an easy stroke. They're the ones you worry about anyway, so the small ones are no big deal. No big briars, no problem.
Cutting deadfall out of trails, as long as it was small enough, was no sweat. It chopped through red oak, hickory, and even dead hardwoods that would rather shatter than be cut cleanly. It also did great limbing conifers for pine boughs or chopping overgrown saplings to clear a trail.
I used the Parang to fashion some crude stakes from some fallen white oak that had been sitting around. I choked up on the blade, holding it by the area above the orange grip, and cut with the blade area closest to the grip.
The blade's weight helps it cut when you chop with it, and the end weight of the blade helps keep it balanced when you're doing more exacting work with the mid or lower blade sections.
Cons:
You get some hand shock when you chop with it, but that's kind of how it goes with a full tang cutting tool that has a plastic grip. Still. If you're shock or recoil sensitive, you may not want this.
Horizontal cutting is a bit difficult if you're used to using a machete. The weight works against you. It shines in vertical or 1-40ish* angular cuts, mostly because of the weight. This makes it a poor tool, somewhat, for horizontal chopping. Though, I have to admit that the trail maintenance and camp tasks I've had it doing didn't require that. I was just doing horizontal cuts to see how it felt and reacted.
The blade shape makes sheathing and unsheathing it a bit of an exercise, given the design of the sheath itself. Granted, I'm not Inigo Montoya. I don't need to whip the Parang out at a moment's notice, so I didn't sweat it too much, but the volume and frequency of briars had me using it and then putting it back until I tired of the ritual and just hung it from my wrist by the lanyard.
All in all, a useful tool that answers the riddle I've had for some time wherein I wanted a machete when I carried a tomahawk and a tomahawk when I carried a machete.
It can hammer with the blade flat. It can dig a cathole. It can split open a coconut with the back of the blade. It chops well. It handles brush well. And, it manages to not dull the moment you start using it. Seems like a nice camp or "survival" tool for my part of the Southern Appalachians as it's well suited to the woody surrounds and the tasks one encounters here.
So far, so good for this tool.
I'm ready to take it on my next weekender and see what happens.
