Originally Posted By: scafool
I have had chips taken out of the edge of a decent machete when trimming branches off hemlocks too.
It was the knot in the centre of the branch as it entered the trunk that did that. Again, nice little crescent shaped notches neatly removed from the edge, about the size of a fingernail.


Using a machete, or other relatively thin bladed tools, a trick to cut down the chance of damage is to always chop at an acute angle. Like your shaving the wood or bone. Coming at a chunk of wood square the wood cleaves and spreads away from the edge but as soon as the blade slows the wood closes tightly around the blade. Efforts to extract the blade which is gripped like a vice by the wood then fatigues the metal and it cracks. I've seen chunks torn out of otherwise reliable and tough tools because of this.

<hangs head> <digs toe of boot in the dirt>
I've done it a couple of times myself when I got impatient and tried to bull my way through a job with a tool not designed for that sort of brute force technique.

Coming at the wood at an acute angle allows the blade to slice the wood and the slice is thin enough that it can't tightly grip the blade. Cutting at an acute angle one way and then completely removing the flap by chopping at an acute angle the other way allows you to make progress. It takes a little longer to chop through a log this way but it works.

The thinner the blade and the tougher the wood, or bone, the more acute the angle you come at it.

Also, if you do get a blade stuck, get another tool and work around it chopping at a shallow angle until the stuck blade is freed. Don't try to wrench the stuck blade out. With luck the stuck tool comes out intact.