Suggestion for machete sharpening

[Elden]

Quite a few years ago, I lived and worked on a farm. We raised hogs and cattle. Electric fences were used quite extensively for keeping them where we wanted. For the fences to remain "hot" (electrified), weeds and grass had to be kept from coming into contact with the fence wires.

Thanks to a young man that had spent time in Grenada of the West Indies, we became well acquainted  with the use of a machete or a cutlass as they called them. He would not call what we had a cutlass, however. I logged hours of machete use and learned to sharpen the machete in the manner that he learned in Grenada. This was before string trimmers became prevalent. The machete still is better for large weeds!

The machete, as he showed us, is sharpened with 3 different bevel angles. I am not going to give degrees of the angles as these can vary for user preference.

The most blunt angle is located on the backside of the tip (on the spine of the machete). It is ground about 3-4 inches long from the point back towards the handle. This is used to cut (really chop) grass , weeds, or saplings that are up against rocks or any hard object that you don't want to hit the normal cutting edge into. The machete should be made of quality steel that stands up to abuse well, but I don't care to abuse the normal cutting edge that much.

On the normal cutting side, the second bevel angle covers most of the edge. It extends from the point back to 3-4 inches from the handle. This is the intermediate cutting angle. It is sharp and beveled enough to cut well with the pivot of the wrist. It is not beveled so much that it is easily dinged however, if it hits a rock or other hard item. This section of the blade is what receives the most use.

The sharpest and smallest cutting bevel is located close to the handle. It extends 3-4 inches from handle towards the tip on the normal cutting side. This is made sharp like a knife. I never did hone it back then, but it could be. This is used to cut clumps of grass close to hard objects and is used as a knife would be. It has a lot more leverage than knife would and works well.

This is one way of sharpening a machete that worked well for our usage. It is definitely a work man's approach that wouldn't be necessary for a display machete.

[Herman Trivilino]

Wow, Elden, that's quite a story.  I would imagine he and you both were quite skilled at sharpening these machetes.  Did you use a human-powered grinding wheel, like the type usually found on a farm for sharpening axes and other tools?

[Elden]

No Herman, we didn't actually make a skill of it. It was free handed on the bench grinder, we weren't concerned about it looking pretty. It was just a farm tool. I dug it out of the shop today and knocked the rust off. Plan to take it to the Tormek and get a lot more precise, consistent 3 step edge on it.

I did find out that the knife portion by the handle was longer than I remembered. It is pretty close to 8 inches long.

We didn't have a functional human-powered grinding wheel. Would have been nice to have had one at times.