DIY Welding Project-Machete from Mower Blade Tutorial

This was a fun little welding fabrication project. I found myself with a stack of old steel thick lawnmower blades. I thought what a better idea than to make a homemade machete with them. I used full penetration weld joints. "V" groove joint design both side. I gouged out the opposite side until I got down to clean sound metal, then welded it up. The trick here was to watch my distortion. So rather than weld one side all the way out I welded each side just below flush and then put the covers on it. Once I welded it out I ground the welds so that they were ground flush and indistinguishable from the base metal. I then marked out a radius for the blade and then a cut out portion for the handle. I then used my hand held electric angle grinder with a cutting wheel to complete the cuts. I honed the blade with a flapper wheel. I then used some wrapped twine for a handle. This was the first of it's kind that I made.