Machetes - Man's Best Friend

January 04, 2011, By Greg Hoard 4 comments

Greg Hoard

Every man needs one of these, has to have one of these. It does everything: cuts, chops, slashes and hacks. You can dig with it, hammer with it, crack stuff, smash stuff.

Under extreme circumstances you can shave with it – not close, but you can.

It’s the ultimate outdoor, multi-purpose, survival tool.

Yep, every man needs one of these babies. It’s a machete. Time to put a little Rambo in your life. It will change the way you do things and it will certainly change the way you are viewed by your neighbors and friends. Add a bandanna and some camouflage pants and it may even cause your wife to perk up.

Here’s how I discovered the attributes of a machete. My house sits on three acres of rolling ground. We’ve got vines, honeysuckle, poison ivy, saplings and all kinds of underbrush.

We have chainsaws, gas-powered brush cutters, axes and pruning shears. But when you are working in close quarters, none of these perform as well as I wanted. Honeysuckle gums up the blades but when you are surrounded by bush, you just need to hack away.

On a whim, I purchased a machete, a two-handed Kukri. It’s 33 ¾ inches in length with a 13-inch, down-turned blade. It’s a nasty, scary looking tool.

If vegetation truly has feelings – as my hippie girlfriends used to insist – it quickly surrenders to the Kukri.

You can go through a fencerow in a heartbeat, taking down about anything in your way.

While I prefer the Kurkri, machetes come in several different styles:

• The two-handed Katana: It looks like a Samurai sword with a 19-inch blade.
• The two-handed Panga: It will take down small trees.
• The double-edged Bolo: Maybe the ultimate. Go to work on the bush and you’ll feel like the Tasmanian Devil.

All of these machetes are available from vendors like Cold Steel and Kennesaw Cutlery, and can be purchased for about $40 with a sheath. Of course, you can go big too, and spend as much as you like.

But, I will tell you this. It’s more than a tool. It is truly an image-maker.

Not long ago a young man bought a house near mine. He wasn’t long out of college and had an annoying habit of having loud parties that went on well into the night.

I talked to him and complained, but to no avail.

Then, one day, he pulled in his driveway while I was cutting brush with my Kukri, slashing back and forth. I was yelling and carrying on out of nothing more than effort.

“Hi-yaa!”

(That’s another upside. Clearing brush with a machete is a heckuva workout.)

He stopped his car and gazed at me.

I was drenched in sweat and, apparently, looked quite crazed.

The parties stopped. I’m sure he thinks his neighbor is psychotic.

Yep, every man needs one of these. Who doesn’t need a little Rambo in their life?