Friday 31 March 2023

Found blades


I seem to find unusual knives in unusual places these days. Do you remember the blade I found on the roof of a nearby bar/restaurant a while ago? I have no idea how or why it got up there, but I think it was a very old grape knife  - probably French.

This wicked looking thing is a large billhook of the type which Brazilians might use on sugar  plantations. Do they grow sugar in Brazil? 

I was walking through a wooded lane built in WW2 to access a bomb dump and spotted the top of it above the sheets of corrugated iron which were the walls of a machine gun emplacement to defend the road it overlooks. Someone must have flung it in there quite recently.

These knives always raise questions. Why would someone throw it away when to buy another would mean spending about £50? I don't like most of the possible answers to that. If I ever use it, it will be on wood.

19 comments:

  1. In an episode of "Death in Paradise" I learned that such things are thrown on top of roofs by miscreants evading capture because that's where the police never think to look!

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    1. ....if they can be bothered to get out of the car.

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  2. Bill hooks were often used for hedge laying. Or like Crocodile Dundee said: "That's a knife".

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    1. I have always used billhooks. They are the best hand tool for thin growth.

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  3. I have my mother's old billhook which I use for chopping the kindling just as she did. It is over 70 years old and as good as new. I keep it indoors when not being used. Brazil is probably the largest producer of sugarcane in the world. It is surprising that today people don't appreciate things like billhooks and turn their noses up at them.

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    1. People want power tools these days. There is nothing better than a billhook for stripping the branches off thicker stems.

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  4. My father in law had a similar one as I suggest most farmers did in the old days =just like they had those lovely old wooden hay rakes that moulder away in barns these days. Please look at my today's post Tom - I hope I have beaten you to it by quoting our favourite Spring poem!

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    1. Everyone wants a power leaf-blower now. I hate the things. Your poem is fine by me, Weave. I'll try and get there first with 'mists and mellow fruitfulness' in a few months.

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  5. I wonder how old your newly found billhook might be. They do date back to medieval times. I own lots of gardening tools but I have never seen a billhook.

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  6. Does that constitute a dangerous weapon that you should not own, carry or take on public transport?

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    1. If you put it in a bag and you are not wearing a hoodie, you could probably get away with not being shot by the police.

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    2. My hoodie always gives me away.

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  7. I've read that billhooks are indeed used by gang members. They are easier to buy than some knives. Whether they are actually on a list of dangerous weapons, I don't know.

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    1. Any legally owned tools which can be used as weapons are used by gangs. Cricket bats have gone out of fashion though.

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  8. A cane knife is known as a 'facão' in Brazil - less hooked, more along the lines of a machete.

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    1. All the West Indians use straight edged machetes as far as I know.

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  9. A good sturdy hedge laying tool. Different shapes in different areas too

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    1. The English version is less curved. Just a gentle curve and not a right angle like this one.

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