Weaponized, I prevail in my first bear encounter (pix fixed)

[Guest]

Actually, I like being able to wield the saw, or the long parang, with one hand while I drive the tractor. Much of the work I was doing today was lopping off scores of low or drooping branches so my tractor can fit under and near the trees for mowing.

Standard practice for trimming the overhang on a densely wooded mile long dirt drive to a friend’s place usually involves one guy slowly driving and stopped the big Dodge pickup with two guys standing in the bed wielding implements of destruction for the overhanging stuff. But I sometimes take the Gator and remove the stuff encroaching on the sides. Drive down and back gets both sides without getting out of the Gator seat.

I just drive over them with my brush hog and chew them into small pieces.

The trees that I drop in full -- today about 25' long -- I just pick up with my tractor jaws and put on one of my brush piles, the primary one of which is now so a high and wall-like that it could make the border patrol jealous.

Don't ever put custom made Pennsylvania Dutch gazebos and 20' arched bridges under weak-wooded weeping willow trees. I just finished smashing up and carting off the last remains of mine, which were crushed when winds toppled some of the giant trees on them two years ago. Crushed my swing chair and Adirondack chairs too. All of it went onto MacWall.

That’s my kind of “Wood processing”.

 

[frozentripper]

Holee man why are you guys all so afraid of bears? They are very much like you. Just yell at them and they will go away. Unless they are eating.

Bear 1: Hm-Mm! Tastes better than ice cream!

Bear 2: OK... You first. Save some for me.

Bear 1: Geez... still no pepper spray. I dunno, I've always had pepper spray.

 

[Odyssey]

Maybe Glenn ought to be nicknamed Blade Man, or maybe Blade Runner? I had visions of Mad Max whilst reading of his tractor-bear encounter. Anyway, it's interesting to see all the choices in dual role wood/bear tool-weapons. But I agree with the bear banger suggestion. They might be an option to alter the bear behaviour to such a degree that the trespasser might also think twice before snooping around the neighbour's yard too, or at least the ones with mighty machines and multi-blades. Maybe.
Oh, and one more thing. Eradicate that poison ivy, not just for you but to detract from it as bear food. http://news.psu.edu/story/185661/200...s-change-color
Or what the heck, just put out a comfy couch for the guy. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/bears-couch-lac-brochet-manitoba-1.4314743

 

[lowangle al]

Or what the heck, just put out a comfy couch for the guy. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/bears-couch-lac-brochet-manitoba-1.4314743

My guess is that when that bear isn't at the dump it spends a lot of time looking in peoples windows.

 

[Guest]

My guess is that when that bear isn't at the dump it spends a lot of time looking in peoples windows.

Good eats at the dump.

https://www.google.com/search?q=fat...=y1zSWYm6HarQ0gLNsZSYAQ#imgrc=YVXPqosJKh4O6M:

 

[deerfly]

No Title

lol, that was a great segue' into blade talk and bear fighten'

I'm a bit of a bark river fan myself... Love the silky saw too. The pocket boy is the only model I've owned but its a work horse for its size.

As fer machete's, I wish BR would make the moro barong in sv35n or 3v.

http://www.dlttrading.com/bark-river-mbar-iv-amwalb-35029-35029-1028

A2 will be a pia to keep from staining and rusting in my climate. Talk about a bush whacker or bear slayer tho. Might get one whether I need it or not.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Deerfly, great BRKT collection. Although I think I recognize most, please identify the models and what kind of wood each handle is. Do you waterproof any of your sheaths?

 

[deerfly]

thanks Glenn, I love them all and use them all a lot. Need a few more tho
L-R
Mini-kalahari sportsman - Cocobola/N661 Bohler
Bravo EDC - Ironwood/elmax
Featherweight Fox River - Ironwood/3V
Mini Aurora - Zebra Wood/3V
Bravo 1.5 - Maccassar Ebony/S35VN

I use Montana Pitch Blend on all my leather, sheaths, archery arm guard and back quiver, etc. Been using it a long time, decades probably. Great stuff.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I use Montana Pitch Blend on all my leather, sheaths, archery arm guard and back quiver, etc. Been using it a long time, decades probably. Great stuff.

Deerfly, last week I decided I wanted to condition and waterproof some sheaths and footwear. I found Obenauf's, Huberd's Shoe Grease and SnoSeal to be widely used, but kept recalling someone somewhere recommending a product with the name of a state for Bark River sheaths. I finally remembered the state was Montana and found this thread again.

So, I bought a very pretty 3 oz. tin of Montana Pitch Blend and am very pleased with the results. Very easy to apply by hand and melts from the heat of your fingers. Nice odor too.

For those interested, Montana Pitch Blend contains pine pitch, bees wax and mink oil. Huberd's is beeswax and pine pitch. Obenauf's is beeswax, bee propolis and unnamed "natural oils", but not pine pitch or mink oil. SnoSeal is beeswax, animal oils and mineral spirits.

Thanks.

 

[Guest]

That leather treatment is interesting. My go to leather treatment/water proofer is mink oil and beeswax mixed and applied to warm leather while melted. it doesn't smell nice though. I wish you hadn't posted that Canadian knife. I have a cheap cold steel version of it and prefer the blade shape but it's not in that league. I'm fighting going on the Bark River site.

 

[Black_Fly]

I'm glad it all went well...for the bear. I was beginning to feel sorry for the little feller as you described your arsenal. Hope he doesn't catch cancer from being exposed to your Roundup sprayer. You should be ashamed leaving that poison laying around for bears to happen upon. dang wildlife endangerment, if you ask me! Some people just can't be trusted with heavy equipment.

 

[ppine]

Just rev the engine, raise the bucket and edge toward him. I have scared bears with a canoe on my head, dogs, a diesel truck, and lots of other things. Use what you have.

 

[Patrick Corry]

Okay, now I can't resist the aspect of this thread which has become about edged tools (weapons) as much as bear deterrence!

When I was young, in 1968, I trekked from Kathmandu to the Mount Everest region in Nepal and back. Roughly 500 miles and many thousands of feet in up & down since the trails traverse at 90 degrees the foothills leading to the Himalaya across succeedingly higher passes and valleys beyond. Along the way I picked up this Kukri, the favored tool (weapon) carried by all the males of the Gurkha tribes in the middle foothills between Kathmandu and Mt. Everest.

If you look closely, there are a couple of nasty gouges in the blade caused by careless use by a pal in the Adirondacks while preparing firewood. I've been thinking of taking the old thing off the shelf where it has acquired museum status (in my feeble mind) and using it for that same purpose for canoe tripping; with a bit more care of course!

It's an interesting tool. Every male carries one tucked into his waistband; a fabric winding around the middle simply tied in a knot after several passes around the torso. Since everyone in that region cooks over a fire, or within a clay "stove" in their homes, the kukri is used daily for cutting and spitting firewood derived from small diameter trees & woody stems.

The blade is about 12" long, with a somewhat ornately carved Rosewood handle, and is a flared wedge shape in cross section- transitioning from the edge to about a 1/2" backbone. Looking closely at the blade near the handle, there is a cutout with a nasty sharp square edged 'appendage' within the cutout. I was told at the time it represented both the male organ (since only males carry and use these tools), as well as a practical drip point for blood- derived both in slaughtering game, and in battle. The Gurkhas have long been a special unit of the United Kingdom armed forces and each one of them to this day carries a kukri into battle!

The scabbard is a carved wooden affair, relieved in the interior to accommodate the blade, and bound by soldered brass rings. The small version of the kukri in the picture is intended as a sharpening device... it's apparently harder steel and has no edge.

 

[Mason]

Nice Kukri! I have one very similar brought back from India by a friend who fought with the Gurkhas in WWII. The sheath is similar, and it had two of the small knives (one has been lost).

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

The real purpose of this thread was to discuss my edged tools and saws, using the actual bear event as a hook.

Long blades are very interesting -- machetes, kukris, goloks, parangs, and others. I don't have a kukri but it sure looks like a great weapon, as well as an effective tool to cut woody brush and trees and to limb branches. I don't see how the kukri could be as effective at tap splitting or baton splitting firewood as a straight or up-swept blade, since the downward curve would interfere by hitting the ground.

Looking closely at the blade near the handle, there is a cutout with a nasty sharp square edged 'appendage' within the cutout. I was told at the time it represented both the male organ (since only males carry and use these tools), as well as a practical drip point for blood- derived both in slaughtering game, and in battle.

Maybe that's all so, but I suspect the practical effect of that area is to serve as a sharpening choil between the cutting edge and short ricasso.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I wish you hadn't posted that Canadian knife. I have a cheap cold steel version of it and prefer the blade shape but it's not in that league. I'm fighting going on the Bark River site.

Bark River has two new knives with the Canadian Special blade shape. The Tundra, which is a exclusively sold at DLT Trading, is a longer Canadian Special blade married to the very popular Aurora handle rather than the finger groove handle of the Canadian Specials. There is also a Mini Tundra, which has almost the same blade length as the Canadian Special but is 0.6" overall shorter (in the handle), thinner and lighter than the Canadian Special or the Canadian Special LT.

 

[deerfly]

i see this thread was resurrected, here's a couple new BRK additions to the family...



golok is shiznit, my new favorite camp chore, bushwaker and wild boar slaya', I'm sure I could use it to convince a bear he had better things to do than get slashed up by that chunk of cpm 3v awesomeness lol

 

[Black_Fly]

Any old rifle saddle scabbard will work. I used the same scoped rifle scabbard for both. The flap is good in case of rain.

 

[ppine]

Knives and bears do not belong in the same sentence.

 

[alsg]

Apparently all you actually needed to defeat a bear is a laptop. ttps://www.cnn.com/2020/06/18/us/bear-attack-woman-laptop-trnd/index.html