Originally Posted By: Byrd_Huntr
One of the features I like about machetes is their lower cost. On the website I posted, they offer an assortment of 5 Tramontina machetes for $29...for all 5! I have two of the machetes in that assortment, one with a wood handle and one with a polymer handle. They are made in Brazil where machetes are as common as mosquitos, and of good quality for the money. I bought a Wetterlings axe, but now they're so expensive that I'm afraid to use it. My Ontario CT-1 takes it's place on my pack. My brother carries the fossil remains of an old Woodsmans Pal in his truck. It comes out in the fall for clearing a shooting lane on his farm where we sight in our guns.


Exactly. A machete combines a lot of differing requirements. The steel has to be hard enough to cut well and hold an edge for a acceptable amount of time, soft enough to sharpen easily, malleable enough to never shatter no matter how hard you swing it into a rock. If you work around cane cutters you find out that these guys are constantly sharpening their machete. Often with a file. They chop hard for fifteen minutes and then throw on a few strokes of the file on. Under such heavy use machetes are expendable and may only last a year or two.

As machetes they only last a year or two. They get sharpened down and become large knives, butcher knives, kitchen knives, paring and pen knives. Wood handles are a plus because they can be filed down with the steel.