Long Reach Machete

I needed a way to trim some brush and briers on a bank without having to get into them. So I modified a standard machete to have a seven foot long handle..... The Long Reach Machete!

I have a few better machetes, but I ended up using one I found by the road. Believe it or not, when you ride a bicycle on rural roads, you can find all kinds of things ... Tools, phones, laptops, and sometimes even a brand new machete! If you don't have a machete, a standard 18 inch machete will do, preferably one that has a handle that is easily removable. I cut a small green tree that was the same thickness as the handle on the machete to use as the new long handle. To attach the tree to the machete, I used four 1/4-20 x 1" long bolts and locknuts, some 16 gauge galvanized wire, and some ducktape. I used a drill with a 1/4" diameter drill bit, three different pliers, lineman's, vice grip, and channel lock. I also used a Swiss Army Knife.

I usually talk about safety first, but if you are interested in making and using a seven foot long handle machete, you have done something right to make it this far in life. Keep doing what you are doing. Just make sure people are not too close when you are using your Long Reach Machete.

Most of the cheap machetes I have seen have a full tang which means that the metal goes all the way thru the handle and the handle is made of two pieces called scales. These scales are held on by screws, rivets, or pins. I thought I could drill the heads off the rivets of my machete, but then I discovered that they were not rivets, but some kind of press fit pins. I was able to pull off on of the scales and then use two pliers to pull the pins apart so that I could pull off the other scale.

The machete I used has four 1/4" diameter holes where the handle was attached. I clamped the machete to the end of the green stick, with some vice grip pliers, and match drilled the holes thru the stick.

With the machete still clamped to the stick, I marked the end of the machete and marked a straight line perpendicular to the holes that I drilled thru the stick.

There is a way to help prevent cracks from splitting further called stop drilling. Before cutting the grove for the machete handle, I drilled a hole where the bottom of the grove will be cut. My hope is that this stop drill hole will prevent my wood handle from splitting down the grain of the wood.

I used a thin pull saw to cut a grove in the wood handle. The grove should be in the middle of the stick and perpendicular to the holes for clamping the machete in place.

I used four 1/4-20 x 1" long bolts and lock nuts to clamp the machete into the new wood handle. My bolts were not quite long enough, so I used a Swiss Army knife to carve off a little bark on both sides until the bolts would reach far enough thru to get the lock nuts started.

This might be overkill, but I wanted to make the joint even stronger so I wrapped it multiple times with 16 gauge galvanized wire.

Everything is better with duck tape. And I wanted the joint to be smooth to not get tangled up in the vines and briers.

Do not underestimate the power of the Long Reach Machete. It is almost unbelievable the slicing power and momentum you can easily build with a machete on the end of a seven foot long stick. It feels more like swinging a baseball bat than a machete. You have to plan ahead for the follow thru for after you cut thru stuff, or if you miss all together what you were aiming at. One safety benefit that I found was that you are far enough away from the destruction is that you don't have briars whipping back and hitting you, which is something that can happen with a regular machete. Thank you for viewing my Instructable. If you make your own Long Reach Machete, I would love to see a picture.

As usual, I made a video. Thanks for watching