Im way overthinking steel for bushcraft knife. Advice sought.

[Wil Terry]

I'll take the CS Trailmaster for all that you note and ask for, Thank you very much ! It has never EVER let me down and I've used [ BEAT?!] the crap out of it making it live up to it's name. Had 'em in CV, O1, and SMIII. All of 'em performed excellently, so well they're the only knives I've has stolen, By FORMER friends.
And so it goes...

 

[Tirod]

As some would say, put or shut up, I just purchased the LS in Desert Tan from Moose Creek. They are available a few places elsewhere but usually $20 higher. It's shipping for the same "front porch" price as black.

The higher point location of the 5" ESEE is typical of American outdoor knives, but one specific task is compromised to a small degree, and that is cleaning a downed deer. Better a drop point in that regard, and why so many hunters prefer them to clip points. Expertise can make it up - and I have cleaned a deer with a mini - Kabar with walnut grips - which reminds me how easy carbon steel is in use.

Looking forward to getting it.

 

[Dave Markowitz]

If you like overthinking you need more to think about, feast your mind on these...
http://www.ragweedforge.com/

Agreed. Hard to beat a good puukko in the woods, IMO.

 

[JShirley]

I tend to like a large blade and a small blade for outdoors work. 120$ is actually budget enough to buy several knives that will cover your potential needs much more thoroughly than any single knife (and don't get me wrong: the SK5 IS a great knife.)

A Mora for $20.
An Imacasa machete with sheath for $22.
A Spyderco ARK for $57.

This would give a small, rustproof, easily carried knife, a larger general purpose knife, and a very large blade for big tasks or defense.

Understand that these three knives can cover virtually any task asked of knives, and you can have them, delivered, for just under $100.

Ben, I don't like finger ridges on a knife I might want to work with.

 

[danez71]

So.... what length would you suggest for the Imacasa?

And would a person's height ( arm length ) play a part or is it strictly subjective?

I've got the mora and more.... and smaller stuff already but I've never had a machete and that almost seems too cheap not to have it

 

[JShirley]

I would go for 12-16". 12 is small enough to use for regular knife stuff in a pinch, but of course you lose some chopping ability. Over 16" is too long, unless you keep it in a vehicle. IMO.

I'm a little guy, but I like big knives. Personal preference, until you get into specific uses like harvesting, then a specific length may be important.

 

[Tirod]

I tried machetes early on, as the Vietnam War put a lot into the surplus market.

The issue is that they were designed for soft vegetable matter growing in near tropical conditions of high rainfall. Using them in a temperate environment with woody stemmed vegetation that has to survive typical Mid West winters left them begging. In high summer they can handle blackberry vine, after first frost you are better off with a hook, hatchet, or simply suffering.

There's a lot made about machetes, and their fans have grown in the last 40 years, but the settlers of North America came from Europe and the hatchet was their preferred woods tool bar none. Knives had their place - hatchets were the heavy hitters of hand work when you needed to chop your way thru. Given that things freeze up for weeks at a time, our ancestors were more concerned about warmth than heavy underbrush. It's a given you can figure out how to walk around it. In the Ozarks you stay under the trees. In the prairies you stay on horseback or pole up stream - which is the way America was first explored. We never needed to hack our way thru dense lush foliage very often - and the stuff is useless for fires. Other than cooking, relatively uneeded, too.

In Canada an axe is still required for small planes flying over the wilderness. South of the Mason Dixon line a machete could be useful, but having spent a day in Georgia outdoors in a snow storm, not so much. A hatchet would have broken up deadfall for a fire much more quickly. We just used C-rat boxes and our allied students thru in their field gear for affect.

Traveling overland or camping I now prefer a hatchet with long handle over a long blade. It does a far better job on wood.

 

[JShirley]

Tirod, I think you are mistaking cultural influences in the Americas leading to hatchet use for the reasons you have assigned.

 

[19-3Ben]

Very interested in the ongoing topic regarding large blades, small blades, machetes, hatchets and their comparative uses and histories in bushcraft/survival. Please keep it going, even if it totally derails the thread. Fine by me!

Ultimately I ended up buying the Esee Laser Strike. Without getting into a full review, I've had it for a little over a week now and what I've tested it with, I am very happy with the purchase, and it has actually rekindled my love of knives a little bit.
When I've had a chance to do more with it and give you a more worthwhile opinion I'll be posting a review with pics and all that.

For now, suffice to say, I'm very happy with the Esee LS.

 

[JShirley]

Okay.

Tomahawk originally was the name of a war club. Hatchets were a trade item, and beloved of the Native Americans because of the dual weapon and tool nature. Hatchets can be made with less skill than large knives, but very large knives were also quite popular in the Americas. The Hudson Bay type of knife was probably fairly similar to a 12" machete, perhaps slightly thicker and shorter.




I like hatchets/hawks (the terms were interchangeable by the Revolutionary War), but large knives work, too.

The most important thing is to actually take your tools out and use them. We can make good choices based on what others we respect have done, but we will find individual preferences.

Here is an article I wrote a couple of years ago, comparing hawk vs RTAK II vs Camp Defender.

 

[Tirod]

bump for your active link -

Not denying that blades were always useful - but the influence of the machete mostly dates from Vietnam on in our culture. They aren't prevalent in catalogs prior to that, and there is little mention of them historically in our founding days.

By machete I'm describing a large flat bladed chopping knife over 14" in length - usually 16-20" In the American experience it's been an agricultural knife used for corn harvesting or clearing land. It's rarely described in trade inventories or depicted.

Lewis and Clark had knives and hawks - not machetes - as trade goods, and traditional pioneer history gives them scant mention. Machetes didn't make it into Hollywood folklore, either - the deadly Arapaho with gleaming 16" machete ravaging a wagon train never got much screen time. If it existed Hollywood sure would have used it - it took the imagination of a much later generation of young men to popularize it in America.

With that, the machete has about run it's course in popularity. What has risen is the hawk, as teams overseas now carry them for demolition and entry work - over the machete, which required ignoring the item already in distribution with an NSN to acquire them COTS for supply. I see them equally represented in the displays in sporting goods stores, and the hatchet, hawk, and small axe predominates in tool stores.

That last fact should be significant - what a handful of edged weapons fans might like is no determination of what the general public prefers and supports on the marketplace. When it comes down to clearing the land and working with the woody detritus that remains, machetes aren't the tool of choice for the early pioneers or those today. Now we use chain saws - of which I have my share - and like our native predecessors, I don't intend to go back to a more labor intensive or primitive means of cutting when I don't need to. It's not a recreational endeavor to me, it's just work.

Like my teenager sons in the day, they started chopping down small trees with machetes, they finished the job with axes, and they didn't look back when they got old enough to work a chain saw. That is the same path that caused a lot of Native Americans to become assimilated - there is no "Osage Nation" in the Ozarks because of it. Living with them locally, tho, they are still around, and I don't see many pining for wickiups. More like diesel pickups.

Having been in about a dozen flea markets and collectible emporiums the last week on vacation, I can say that old hatchets and axes outnumber the machete in whatever zombie color is current this month 100 to 1.

In fairness, I'd pay my own way to see a museum display of Revolutionary War machetes and pioneer parangs on display. It would be a first.

 

[JShirley]

Okay, so with your obvious straw man, I don't see the point of dignifying you with a further response. I showed a picture of a common large knife in the Americas in the 1800s. Your opinion of practility does not in fact change historical record.

 

[MartinS]

I'm glad those dastardly machete cultists have finally been unmasked and exposed and no longer threaten the true telling of all the wonderful felling in our history.

 

[Tirod]

We've agreed to disagree on the machete before. Not trying to derail what is a camp knife thread.

In that regard the typical 4-6" knife was always much more prevalent in the historical record, and often a folder. Those large Bowies in the photos pictured during the Civil War are a good example - props used to embellish a photo for the folks back home. The reality is that the average soldier never carried them.

Same for most of us deployed, and a topic I've visited with many in the service. Many took large knives into service - but for the most part they remained in the bottom of the duffel bag. Despite our enthusiasm for them carrying and using them became a chore. The 4" folder is much more common. Goes to the issue knives of WWII. Largely 4-6" blades of the Marbles patterns. That puts the style back to the turn of the century, and it was credited to what was used long before it.

We may see some large knives in the historical record but the most plentiful carried by Lewis and Clark were smaller ones. The list includes 24 hatchets, 24 large knives, and then as you work down - 288 "knives."

That should give us a proportional view of what was being used up as the main knife daily, if only there were a better description. But - they were apparently not "large" as those were separately described. I don't think humans were any different then than now - we really don't rely on large knives much unless the specific task requires them. In general use we go smaller, since most of the work we do doesn't need more than a few inches of cutting edge.

It also goes to the expense of getting more than 4-6" of good blade. Then as now it takes a lot more steel, and a lot more labor to fashion, which puts the longer blades into a higher price bracket. One flaw in the manufacturing and you lose the labor - a smith or factory could then just cut it down (which also implies the source of "patch knives" for muzzle loaders.) And the point still is made you can buy more small knives which last longer in total than one larger one. Plus you have backups in your pack if it slips out of the sheath in heavy cover. Nobody likes to lose an expensive knife.

No doubt the average male likes to attach a lot of significance to larger blades - the ceremonial two handed swords in museums are well represented. But the average user typically relies on something much smaller and lighter. I would add we do exactly the same with firearms, and that historical record is pretty clear, too. Smaller is preferred.

That's why knives like the Laser Strike don't get much attention - they are utility looking unpretentious designs meant to be used, unlike the massive choppers that appeal to the emotions of young men as The Blade That Rules Them All. The reality of carrying one every day over the trail usually results in a new decision early on. If in a larger group organized for self protection, somebody will have the larger tool to be loaned if needed. Otherwise, the 4-6" gets most of it done.

Not that I don't own machetes, or hawks. They sit on the garden implement shelf where they wait for months at a time. I don't even take them camping in the modern genre we practice. I take the entrenching tool for that.

 

[JShirley]

Those large Bowies in the photos pictured during the Civil War are a good example - props used to embellish a photo for the folks back home. The reality is that the average soldier never carried them

Not true. A lot of Confederate soldiers carried them- just not for long, as every ounce counts when you're marching many miles. The museum at Stone Mountain has many examples, with the note that they were frequently discarded while rebel soldiers marched.
Practical blades for a modern Soldier bear little relation to camp tools.