How Blacksmiths make Sugarcane Machetes

Blacksmiths making specialised machetes for processing sugarcane. We found this blacksmith shop at a mountain village called Patag. Sugarcane farming is the primary industry on Negros Island in the Philippines. Around Bacolod City you will see many trucks loaded up with tons of these sweet tasty plants :-)
Sugarcane machetes or 'cane knives' as they are often known, can be very heavy weighing up to 1.6kg, the long handle allows the user to swing the machete with 2 hands. Often a cane knife has a hook shape on the blunt side of the tip, this is useful for pulling upwards on the sugarcane plants after they are cut from the ground. See the footage at 8:38 of cane knives with the hook, this variety of cane knife is usually the lighter "in field" variety.
The cane knives you see being made in this video are more useful for chopping up and packing of the harvest once it's off the ground. They are fantastically crafted chopping tools, it was awesome to see Mr JJ hammering the pins into his high quality handles. Once the tang is forcefully bolted to the steel tubing, the machete almost becomes one single piece of steel. It was also particularly special to see Mr JJ branding his work with the letters JJ.

If you ever get the chance to visit Bacolod, make sure you try sugarcane juice, it's absolutely succulent. I was lucky to taste pure sugarcane juice in Bacolod city, diabetics beware it's 10 times sweeter than orange juice :-D
The name of this blacksmith shop is JJ Pandayan, pandayan is the Filipino word for blacksmith.

TIME STAMPS
1:55 Making a wooden handle
2:45 Hole punching steel
4:31 Bolting the tang
5:55 Cutting the tubes
6:19 Branding the JJ letters
8:25 Visiting a cane farm

We hope to make more videos like this in future, see the following links for more blacksmiths and knife making videos at Bush Channel.

Buffalo Horn Machete Handles    • How Blacksmiths make Buffalo Horn Machete ...  

Our original Blacksmith video    • How blacksmiths make machetes - Making a k...  

Malaysian Parang makers    • How blacksmiths make parang machetes in Ma...  

Modifying a machete for trail clearing    • How Blacksmiths make Machetes, Modifying t...  

Our friend Travis Kraft in the Philippines    / poolboyinla  

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Gunshot ricochet sound recorded by Grant Evans
Bush Channel Cartoon artwork by Gerald Carr