AXE vs PARANG

Hi Ben, today we are in the woods again and we are here to ask that question. What are you going to wear? Are you going to grab your ax or carry your

parang

on your next bushcraft adventure? look what they can do, so quite often when you get to your camp you have to clear the vegetation off the ground, so brambles and a little bit of dog quicksilver, so let's try to do it with our ax first, it works, but you have to be very precise because you only have a very short edge and then let's try it with the prang, obviously much more efficient.

You have a huge 10 inch blade, so it really clears the foliage off the ground. effective and easy so ax vs prang for that application I'm afraid the prang will win so we head a little further into the forest where it's getting quite dense with a lot of these thin stems growing everywhere so if you want to clear out an area for your camp, you would have to start taking out some of these, so with your ax you will have to be a little more precise in hitting it because you have a cutting edge of about three inches and this is probably about an inch and a quarter in diameter, so you would have to be very precise and hit, and it is quite effective.

Once you've made the first cut, you'll probably find that it will bounce quite a bit when you swing the axe. so you would have to go down quite a bit to get close to the base to be able to remove it with a few upward strokes like this, so we'll go down to the other stem which is about the same diameter, about an inch and a quarter, obviously. I don't have to be as precise because I have a much longer edge, but you'll probably find that it won't bounce as bad on the next swing because it's a much thinner blade, yeah, it works pretty well. so they both cut rods of that size quite efficiently, a slight advantage with the

parang

and the fact that it didn't have to be as precise, but they were actually both quite good, if I were to carry one in this case again it would probably be the trick only because I don't have to be as precise and if I was working at much lower light levels I'd probably be a lot safer too, so now we have a larger diameter lumber that's already dirty, but I need to process it into manageable lengths as well that we're going to test the ax to start on that section of wood, so we're looking at maybe a three and a half inch diameter, let's see how fast it goes through there that it didn't. taking too long it wasn't the cleanest cut, it broke a little on the back, but the extra weight of the ax and the long handle made it quite efficient, it didn't leave us breathless and we have a pretty manageable piece of wood to pull out of the forest now, so let's try the parang on that same piece of wood but a little higher up and see how it works, a little slower, I would say probably a little neater. probably because it is a slightly wider edge.

I'm certainly more out of breath because I had to move it a lot more, a much lighter tool, so obviously I had to put all the energy on myself, so I would actually say yes you. What I'm going to do for efficiency, the ax is definitely what I should carry, but what I would say is that if I was working in a tight, restricted space, I would feel like I was a little more precise with my strikes with the prang, certainly a lot. more orderly. chopping, but yeah, I would probably say the ax beats a parang for large diameter wood, chopping it up, okay, so the next task is to split some wood, whether it's for firewood or for crafts, so what we've fact is cutting.

These pieces of wood we've cut with a saw so that they both have square ends at the top and bottom, so it's kind of an equal test, so replace the log on that stump and then we'll take the ax and see how it works. Nice center split, flip it over, use the weight of the log and we've pretty much split that log straight down the pith, so we have two nice equal halves, so we'll see how that works again if we split it again. once again yeah pretty good so we're using the weight of the ax and it's splitting the ash really well and easily so that's pretty good so in the next log we'll see how the parang works so we'll come back to that stump now, obviously.

We don't have the wedge shape that you have on an axe, so let's see if I can get that into the log, so it wasn't quite central. You could lift the prang like this and hit the log on the block. I can't imagine this working as effectively because obviously now that it's in we don't have that wedge effect, so with this I think what I'm going to have to do is use another log to hit the back edge of the actual log. prang itself, this is a technique we call batman, so splitting that side wasn't particularly central, so let's try again to see if I can split this other half in half again to see if I can be a little more precise this time . a little bit better, it was actually quite long so I was able to hit it all the way down, but it's actually easier and a little more efficient to just hit it all the way to the end, so that's okay, I was actually surprised at how efficient it actually was, um obviously having no wedge if we show them side by side it has a little blade we have a real wedge shape for the ax and a really flat blade for the prang so it's obviously not designed to split very well , certainly not big firewood logs like that. ax actually got a win on the split front, but I was actually quite impressed with that and the same scenario a bit like when we were clearing the trees in the other tests, if I was working in a very close environment, actually going through it, I'd probably be a little safer, but yes, the ax wins in front splitting, so another good test is how efficient it is to put a point on a stake to build a shelter or a peg or something, so first of all We'll try the axe, so the technique I would probably use if I wasn't using a cutting board is to hold the stick on my thigh like this and then swing it back, so it's not too bad.

I usually try to do it in sort of four cuts, just keep rotating. The log round isn't too bad so that's our point and it worked pretty well again because it has a pretty short edge. You have to be a little precise, but with practice you'll probably become pretty efficient, so let's put a dot on the other end. of the branch, but this time using the prang, so we will use the same technique, so we will rest against the thigh. Wow, okay, it was certainly a lot easier, certainly, faster. You could really feel that, obviously, because this is a much thinner blade.

That wedge shape just slid through the fibers very easily and efficiently. The finish it has is really super smooth. It's almost like you have a plane, so if you were to choose a tool for aiming stakes in the woods. I think I would probably go with the parang, so the final test we wanted to put it through is just a little bit of craftsmanship, so if you actually have a carving, kind of a tent stake or you have a little trigger car for a trap or something like that, could you use your ax to do that, so we'll get the They are obviously convex, so not the best for making controlled cuts.

You could apply pressure on the ax post to push the fiber cutter and you could if you had to make that work but it's actually a bit fiddly but it cuts and does something so yeah you could persevere and get used to using the ax big, but let's compare that to using a prang for the same type of cutting test, so we'll try the parang now, obviously a bit like the axe, it might be a bit cumbersome if you use the end, but we can strangle it. obviously close to the handle and we apply pressure to the back edge of the parang and it cuts more or less like if you were actually using a knife and if we were to use the end of the parang itself where the convex sharpening is which is just like the shafts, It actually cuts pretty well because we don't have that thick edge geometry and we don't have that wedge shape, it slides through the fibers pretty easily, but close to the handle where you can get a lot of control and a lot of balance, I think it could pretty accurately carve a trigger for a trap or a notch for a bow drill set or something quite efficiently and easily, so yeah, pretty amazing cut quality, actually very smooth cuts there and a lot more easy to control so if I was going to choose a tool for that type of application I think the parang wins again so the other couple of things we have to think about as well obviously if you carry an ax you already have it .

I don't really have a case for it to sit in, but you usually have a cover for the ax that obviously protects the edge. This is quite small so it could be a bit tricky and you could lose it in the woods if you don't place it. in your pocket, but it's obviously much less bulky to carry than a proper case. The other thing you have on the axe, which is a real plus, is that stick that can be used as a makeshift hammer to hit pegs and obviously you can hit the back of that very easily, so that's a big plus. , the parang itself tends to always have some sort of sheath, so obviously it has a kydex sheath, but it has a belt loop, so that means you can carry it with you. belt very conveniently, so if you have gathered a lot of materials in the forest and are going to carry them back to the camp, you don't have to worry about carrying your parang separately, which will just be on your belt, so it will be a little easier to carry. lead maybe so obviously in these types of situations and the tests that we've put these tools through actually seem to outperform the acts in these particular applications that we've put them through today, but I don't think it's a tool that's going to do everything type of job.

I think it really depends on the type of environment you're in and obviously how long you're going to go and what time of year, so if I went into the woods in the winter I'd probably take an ax because obviously I'm going to be chopping a lot. more firewood, but in this kind of environment with these small diameter stems and if I were making shelters or making hides or maybe just clearing some brush, I think I would probably end up carrying a parang with me, but that's just my personal choice, so it would be interesting to hear what you guys carry when you go to the woods or on a camping trip.

Do they carry a parang? Do you carry an ax or maybe you carry a completely different tool that we haven't even thought about so if you want to put it in the comments below it would be good to hear what you carry and I certainly enjoyed my afternoon in the woods I hope you enjoyed seeing us using some of the tools in their natural environment and remember to subscribe to the channel for more videos like this and see you next time thanks for watching.