kel_aa said:
Can you give more detail to "cut very thick woods," as pertaining to "'survival' wood craft"? Are we talking about any cutting or just sawing?
Slicing generally. I didn't in general have much use for serrations craft until recently and mainly due my brother who prefers a fully serrated blade as a carpenter which seemed in opposition to what you would expect. After discussing the matter and understanding his viewpoint I spent some time comparing plain vs serrated, specifically SpyderEdge for cutting light vegetation and poles and limbs. It was all much faster with the serrated edge and much less physically demanding.
For example, say you have a standing green tree the diameter of 4 inches, that you need use as a lever (to raise a rock fallen on your friend). What would be your approach to take it down with a serrated Delica? a PE Delica?
I wouldn't. Locally the wood type of that size would be heavy limbed and only a short section of it would be rigid enough to actually function as a lever on a rock so large it could not be moved by hand. In general I would simply cut down several smaller poles and lash them together.
Example two, say now that tree is standing dead or a fence post. Does anything change?
Fence posts are usually rotted underneath so you can break them off and still have solid wood to use. Otherwise it is just a dense wood which has been limbed clear, usually you can use the rest of the fence as a lever to break the post, or just tear off one of the runners.
I think I would probaby try to cut/baton wedges out in a ring and try to push it over and then sever it. Edge retention/edge angle differences aside, is the technique any different? Are you going to saw out the wedges?
Assuming we are talking about time constraints, I would look for a tree which has a lean, the more severe the better. In general this is usually avoided because of the danger of kickback, but on small trees this isn't a critical problem, though still dangerous and I have cut a lot of them anyway. With enough lean the tree will open readily as it is cut and little of it has to be cut before it will just break off. If you have someone with you, or having something which can be readily lashed to the tree, this can be used to add to the tension.
If you have to cut standing hardwood like a post in an emergency with a really small folder then you either have to baton off the wood, saw it off, or drive the point in to weaken it. Fallkniven recommends the point technique, I have tried it many times to little success regarding time comparisons to other methods. I would really like to see it demonstrated efficiently. Batoning heavily on a small folder like a Delica will mangle it and thus sawing with the serrated pattern is *way* more efficient especially once you get past the initial cuts because trying to baton into a deep cut with a blade that small is very difficult.
You do raise an interesting point though, I have mainly worked with smaller woods, 1-2" with that class of blades and not really explored them on larger woods. I think I'll run some baton vs tip vs sawing this weekend if I get the time. I have to help a friend clear a lot anyway.
frank k said:
The SAK saw was also safer/faster/ more precise and efficient than chopping with any of the 5-7” blade knives that I tried.
A decent 7" blade should radically outcut the SAK blade in terms of speed and effort. I recently compared a Cold Steel shovel to a Ratweiler on spruce 2x4 and used a Rucksack as a reference. The Ratweiler was significantly faster, and I don't do a lot of racing chopping, so my precision was way low, about half of optimal. If my hit placement were better the performance would not even be close, about 2:1.
On softer woods the knife will go ahead even faster, and if you look at things like limbing it is literally comparing seconds to minutes. A seven ich blade can sweep the brush from around a tree, clear off the limbs to height, fell the stick, and clear off the rest of the tree, all while the saw is still trimming the brush. For example :
The dead stick in the foreground has lots of dry wood in the limbs for burning and the trunk is suitable as well. The stick cracked off in the background has a massive amount of limbs for shelter, or bedding or burning and is fairly readily itself used as a base for a debris shelter. Doing this chopping work is a very long time with a SAK saw, very fast with a Ratweiler.
Blue Sky said:
I think it would be possible to manually offset the teeth on an Ontario sawback machete with a little time and patience. I wonder what that would cut like? Still a little thick but the binding problem should be gone.
Consider trying to actually transfer power into the wood with the Ontario grip compared to a normal saw grip. It would not be something I would want to use.
-Cliff
