September 24, 20178 yr I found the scabbard at an auction with a bunch of others so decided to forge a d-guard brush machete to fit it. The blade is an old buggy spring that hardened and tempered well. Someone told me that it looks like a Civil War artillery machete used to clear brush from in front of a battery. I haven't found any reference to that though. Missing photo added at end.
September 24, 20178 yr I like it. Looks pretty nice. The only critique I have is that the handle looks a little square. It would probably feel more comfortable if it was rounded more, but that's a matter of personal taste. Nice work.
September 25, 20178 yr Did they have pizza during the Civil War? Come to think of it, did they have rebar?
September 27, 20178 yr Author Pizza... no the first documentation is from Italy in 1889 and introduced to the U.S. in 1905 NYC. Rebar... yes the first documentation of it's use was in Europe in the 15th century but not widely used in the U.S. until after the Civil War. That's all I know.
September 27, 20178 yr Early masonry tended to be brick and stone; sometimes two walls with rubble fill between them. Cast concrete was not much used, The dome of the pantheon does come to mind though---wiki: "Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheon's dome is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome." Large load bearing castings would drive a need to make concrete stronger.
September 27, 20178 yr Nah, pizza has been around since biblical times and earlier. The best description I remember reading was Roman army food. They'd take large batches of bread dough, individual legionnaires would pinch off what they wanted or were issued. They then patted them into flat cakes, added olive oil and baked them on the stones around the fire. Adding cheese, meat, veggies or whatever was available was a given. When the Hebrews fled Egypt they didn't have time to make leavened bread. The method used was the air delivered yeast spoor sour dough version of leavened bread. Anyway there wasn't time to let dough sit out in the open air long enough to catch enough yeast to rise so they ate it as a quick bread. unleavened crackers, Motso bread. I'm sure dietary strictures seriously limited what they baked on their bread when they had time for proper bread. Only the name "Pizza Pie" is recent, coined by American troops who fell in love with the stuff when stationed in Italy and brought it home. The food has been around since bread was invented, not long after beer. Beer's been around longer, MUCH. Oldest masonry structures known so far Gobekli Tepe appear to be temples and the deeper they excavate the more ancient it pushes the "civilization" time line back. How does that apply here? Every level has brewing vats, people have been drinking beer as long as we've been stacking stones. Cool huh? Beer and Pizza! I'd take the guard off the blade in the OP were I making a pizza slicer out of it. Frosty The Lucky.
September 27, 20178 yr "Pizza pie" translates out as "pie pie". Pizza means pie in Italian. SLAG. Italian pizza is very different than the current North American pie. It is much plainer. & ... Jer only insomnia permits me to keep up with you. Mortar, grout, and cement were later inventions. the earliest Mesopotamian cultures used pitch (tar) to join masonry together. And that was much much later than Gulbeke Tepe. Cheers, Dan.
October 7, 20178 yr Wait a second there, isn't Pizza a province or city in Italy? Didn't American GIs dub the pies "Pizza pie" when they came back from the war, in other words The pie from PIzza? Italian pie is much different but they don't have the kind of competition among parlors we do here and our taste buds aren't expecting what we've been eating for generations. I'm a kitchen sink pizza guy. NO anchovies!! Nasty little fish oil flavored salt sticks. I think they're someone's revenge, get us to eat bait fish. Pizza's really just a pan bread with toppings. We used to make hot sandwiches around the fire in the field by wrapping something, usually meat in bread dough and toasting it over the fire. slap it on a hot rock next to the fire and you have the ancient version of bread, top it with whatever's handy. Bread baked over a wood fire is delicious it picks up the smoke flavor wonderfully. Jer
October 7, 20178 yr Frosty San, I'm with you concerning anchovies. Ask an Italian speaker for the meaning of pizza, and that will settle the question. Ja mata, (a.k.a. sayonara, almost)., SLAG.
April 17, 20215 yr Author Just found out the original picture is missing, so thought I would add a couple back in.
April 17, 20215 yr Aren't you awfully tempted sometimes with that nice chopper so close to the computer? Frosty The Lucky.
April 17, 20215 yr Author Not with the chopper but I have eyed the shotgun in the corner a few times.
April 17, 20215 yr I've shot unfriendly electronics, it's most satisfying. Do it outside though. I've been shooting dead wrist watches since I was pretty young. Mechanicals are more fun than electronic ones, there's a better parts spray and cooler wreckage. Frosty The Lucky.
April 17, 20215 yr Author I have made some 100 yard targets out of them too. The best were the old CRT monitors, they blew up when shot.
April 19, 20215 yr Mr. Powers, Concerning the EMRTC performance. I missed a good show, I'm sure. But did they initially consider the subsequent effect on the resell value of that car pre big bang? SLAG.
April 19, 20215 yr Generally they are donated for the tax write off and then sold as scrap; My local scrapyard once got an amazing pile of gnarly, torn, tortured metal fragments from EMRTC.
April 19, 20215 yr T. P., You ARE so lucky. You are close to great gnarled scrap, And you can trip airport explosive alarms. SLAG. Mr. Dragon, Entropy lives!
April 19, 20215 yr It would make a great "don't trespass" strip; but it doesn't seem very usable for other things. Now the human silhouette target in 3/8"? plate riddled with through&throughs does make a nice sign "Burglars Welcome; free gifts delivered at high speeds" (Found that at the scrapyard too; it's interesting as the front of the target has a "splash ring" whereas the back has the "tearout ring". I call it my "cheese grater".)
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