The best place to buy is from Himalayan Imports. Hands down. I have bought from them all.
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The best place to buy is from Himalayan Imports. Hands down. I have bought from them all.
My Ontario Beaver Tail is the best of what I've used...... Strong steel and decent edge holding for its intended use.
Ill stick with my filipino specials, great for brush and medium to large game. Some guy in Ilocos Norte made them and he doesn't have a website, but if you ever visit they arent expensive at all.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...psa2rvlagy.jpg
I used to land survey for a few years. For those that don't know there is a lot of cutting brush to clear sight lines and for traverse. We used Tramontinas. http://www.machetespecialists.com/tr...as-sheath.html We used the 22 or 24 inch blades with aftermarket leather sheaths. The handles can be slick put that is easily fixed with a qrip or two of duct tape. The link has the blade profile of the ones we used.
I don't know about batoning but I did cut down quite a few trees with some being about a foot in diameter. Even in heavy brush we would only have to sharpen the blade once or twice a day. I would get it so sharp that the blade would "sing" when cutting through a thin vine. The metal on the blade would last about a year and a half or so. Bear in mind that this was used every day to some extent and at times weeks cutting all the time everyday. No special care was used in sharpening. We just used mill bastard files so a lot of metal was taken off at once. Despite this the blades still lasted that long.
On mine the tips would get smaller first since I tended to sharpen it the most. This is because it wasn't practical to carry a shovel in the woods to dig for property corners. As a result the first 4 inches took a lot of punishment. I wouldn't hesitate to by one with my own money. Based on my experience I prefer the longer blades for brush work. The short blades mean your hands are closer to your work meaning they'll get cut and scratched more often and I just pictures the short blades taking knee caps off.
I have owned my Ontario 18'' since the 80s and it has never gave me a reason to try or buy another brand.
Nice blades
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Because of what I do and what I needed, many years ago I commenced making knives, specifically bolo and parang types looking for the perfect trail companion. I cut lots of trail and maintain it on my ranch and beyond in remote areas here. It is an interesting study. Little by little I came up with designs that were the most practical and efficient and interestingly enough, they were not too much different from many designs common to the SE Asian knife culture areas.
Second vote for Himalayan imports. Hard to beat for the money. I do have a extrema ratio kukri that beats it but it is 3x the price.k