A sling blade or kaiser blade is a heavy, hooked,
steel blade
A blade is the portion of a tool, weapon, or machine with an edge that is designed to puncture, chop, slice or scrape surfaces or materials. Blades are typically made from materials that are harder than those they are to be used on. Histor ...
at the end of a long (around ) handle that is usually made of wood. The blade is double-edged, and both sides are usually kept sharp. It is used to cut brush, briar, and undergrowth. Other common names for the tool are bush knife, ditch bank blade, briar axe, and surveyor's brush axe. On the East Coast of the United States some farmers call it a bush axe. The
Plover, Wisconsin
Plover is a village in Portage County, Wisconsin, United States. A suburb of Stevens Point, it is part of the Stevens Point Micropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 13,519 at the 2020 United States census.
History
An 1825 treaty establ ...
dialect refers to it as a ditch witch. Also historically used as a
wildland firefighting tool to cut fireline, known as a brush hook. It is also sometimes referred to as a bush hook in south eastern North Carolina. Its use in wildland fire has been substantially superseded by the
chainsaw
A chainsaw (or chain saw) is a portable gasoline-, electric-, or battery-powered saw that cuts with a set of teeth attached to a rotating chain driven along a guide bar. It is used in activities such as tree felling, limbing, bucking, pru ...
.
In popular culture
*In the movie ''
Sling Blade
A sling blade or kaiser blade is a heavy, hooked, steel blade at the end of a long (around ) handle that is usually made of wood. The blade is double-edged, and both sides are usually kept sharp. It is used to cut brush, briar, and undergrowth. ...
'', Karl Childers (
Billy Bob Thornton
Billy Bob Thornton (born August 4, 1955) is an American actor, filmmaker and musician. He had his first break when he co-wrote and starred in the 1992 thriller ''One False Move'', and received international attention after writing, directing, a ...
), the main character, recounts an incident from his childhood in which he killed his mother and her paramour with this tool. Childers describes it as, "Some folks call it a sling blade, I call it a kaiser blade. It's kinda got a long wooden handle, kind of like an axe handle. With a long blade on it shaped kinda like a bananer. Mhm. Sharp on one edge, and dull on the other. Mhm. It's what the highway boys use to cut down weeds and whatnot."
*In the novel ''
Red Rising
''Red Rising'' is a 2014 dystopian science fiction novel by American author Pierce Brown, and the first book and eponym of a series. The novel, set in the future on Mars, follows lowborn miner Darrow as he infiltrates the ranks of the elite Gol ...
'', Helldivers are equipped with sling blades intended to sever their limbs if caught in machinery. The protagonist, Darrow, later acquires a sling blade during a training game. After breaking the rules of the game and attacking the proctors, he becomes known as "The Reaper" with the sling blade as his sigil.
See also
*
Brush hook
A brush hook (also called a bush hook, brush axe, ditch blade, ditch bank blade, or ditch blade axe) is a gardening instrument resembling an axe, generally with a to curved blade and a to handle. It is commonly used by surveying crews and fir ...
*
Billhook
A billhook or bill hook, also called a pruning knife or spar hook, is a versatile cutting tool used widely in agriculture and forestry for cutting woody material such as shrubs, small trees and branches. It is distinct from the sickle. It was ...
*
Bill (weapon)
A bill is a class of agricultural implement used for trimming tree limbs, which was often repurposed for use as an infantry polearm. In English, the term 'Italian bill' is applied to the similar roncone or roncola, but the Italian version tende ...
References
{{Reflist
Gardening tools
Cutting tools