Barteaux Heavy Duty Machete (junk)

[kgriggs8]

This review is from memory. About eight years ago I was in working a CRM Archeaology job in Kentucky/Southern Indiana near the Ohio River. We had to gear up so we bought all our gear from some forestry catalog. The only machete option was Barteaux so that is what we got. We got the Heavy duty orange D handle with the 24" blade. We got four of them and used them all summer.

Here are my findings.

CUTTING ABILITY:
It is not much of a machete at all. It had a hard time chopping any wood of any size. It would wouldn't cut grass and weeds as much as whack at them and break and tear them. Hard woods would make the blade vibrate and deflect off without biting into it. I think the blade was too long for its own good. In a summer, there was no cutting task that the Barteaux did well at. It might as well have been a two foot piece of sheat metal.

ERGONOMICS:
Bad! The D handle was designed to rub the skin off your knuckels as far as I can see. I don't know what pratical use that is but it was good at it. Seriously, why do we need D handles on a machete? Is there some problem that I missing about regular old handles that required fixing with the "new and improved" D handle? The shock of the flimsy blade also caused pain in the hand if you tried to use it very much. The blade transfered shock right to the hand and didn't seem to absorb it for some reason.

DURABILITY:
This is one thing that I can't say was bad. The blades held up and there were no breakages or damage even though they were not always used by people that had any machete experience. I have had a lot of machete blade time under my belt by the time I used the Barteaux machetes so I was not very impressed with them. At least they didn't fall apart in the field.

VALUE:
I think we paid about $35 each for these at the time. Considering that at the time, we could have bought the fine Ontario US Issue 18" machete for about $15, I feel we got ripped off in a big way. I consider the Ontario the machete by which others are judged. The 18" is just the right size for most tasks. I have owned mine for almost 20 years now and it has preformed very well and stood up to hard work for longer than it has any right to for a $15 machete. I would rank the Ontario at top of the scale value wise and the Barteax in the bottom middle. On a scale of 1-10, the Ontario is a 10 and the Barteaux is a 3. It could have been worse like some hardware store junk and fallen apart or it could have been $100 and not preformed well.

OVERALL:
I can't recomend this machete for any reason or use that I have found. Be aware that we had the long 24" blades and a shorter 18":blade might very well preform better. We had what we had so that is what I am basing my review on. With how well balanced and efficient the 18" Ontario is, I would be surprised if the Barteaux in the same size wasn't a better machete. I feel the 24" blade is too long and whippy. It makes for a very unsafe machete due the loss of control and glancing blows. The handle was a nightmare and overall it was a terrible machete.

Random thoughts:
A few weeks into the dig, I was able to go home for a weekend and I brought back my Ontario machete. The difference was night and day. My buddy who is a big guy "about 350lbs" bet me that he could chop down a ~4" sappling faster with his bigger and longer Barteaux than I could with my Ontario. We counted strikes to see. I took about half a dozen or so and he took 20-30. It was clear evidence that the Ontario was better.

The only reason I wrote this review after so many years is that I see people asking for advice from time to time about machetes and Barteaux gets recomended more than I think it should. I don't know if that is just because that is the only machete some people have ever tried or if there are decent Barteaux machetes out there.

http://www.machete.com/prod01.htm

 

[Cliff Stamp]

It would wouldn't cut grass and weeds as much as whack at them and break and tear them

That is sharpness issue.

Hard woods would make the blade vibrate and deflect off without biting into it.

I have not used the 24" , but the 18" was solid in that respect. Much more durable than both ontarios I had which came apart on hardwoods. The barteaux did need to have the edge filed to shape before they would cut woods well though.

-Cliff

 

[t1mpani]

Yes, sounds like an edge geometry issue. I've found that many machetes/hatchets/any kind of chopping tool from the less expensive side of the fence tend to come with what I'd have to call a laughable sharpening job. Of my three Ontarios, two came with decent edges, though still not what I wanted and they ended up being filed/sanded down into a geometry that would actually cut. I was less than impressed with the Woodsman's Pal when my first one showed up, because it went from edge to full thickness in the space of about 1/4" of blade width, and really was just a cudgel. A LOT of reprofiling later, though, it became a real cutting tool. Since, I've bought a couple more and given them the same treatment, as they fit nicely into vehicle-sized toolboxes, and due to the way they're balanced also have a lot of power for their size.

True, some durability is lost when you remove that much steel, but you also don't have to take roid-rage gorilla swings at your cutting mediums when your tool is actually capable of cutting.

Have to agree about the D-handles, though. It's not a horrible idea, but most I've held do not give nearly enough room for your fingers, and as you say--end up causing more injury than they prevent.

 

[kgriggs8]

The Barteaux machetes were pretty sharp. I personally sharpened at least one of them before I tried to use it. It really wasn't a matter of it being dull, I think it was mostly due to the longer blade being slower in the swing. With my 18" Ontario, I can get it moving pretty fast so that helps more than anything in cutting light veg. Grasses can be cut with no edge at all if the blade is moving at a good clip. The same is true for wood, you don't need a razor edge to cut small trees and braches.

I think it boils down to the fact that there is such a thing as too much blade. The Barteaux was so long, it started to become less effective. I have never needed or wanted any more reach than the 18" Ontario gave me. I hear the 12" is a handy blade as well and I don't doubt it but the extra 6" keeps your knuckles from getting beat up by brush as thorns.

I can see why you might think that a 24" blade would do more work. When cutting grass, a 24" blade would in theory cut 1/3 more grass with each swing. In real life, it doesn't work that way. There is no free lunch so to speak. In addition to more effort per swing, the speed of the swing goes down as well. There is a point of reduced gains at some point and it happens somewhere between 18" and 24" from what I have seen. I have seen this happen to all swung tools, hammers, axes, Kukris ect. At some point, the size increase doesn't aid in doing more work. Sledge hammers are a good example. Anyone that has really had to use one, knows that bigger is not always better. It depends on your size and strength. For me, I am pretty big and strong but I prefer a sledge hammer to be light enough to allow me to swing it with more velocity. I can deliver more foot pounds of energy with a lighter faster hammer than a bigger slower one. Same is true of machetes.

Machetes are unique tools. Edge geometry, sharpness and blade steel are important but not as important at balance and shape. They are very simple tools but they are tricky to make perfect. My advice is to stick with the old designs that have proven themselves over the years. You don't need a tactical blade shape, go with a Bolo style and it should be better than anything else that has been designed in the past 50 years. Look at what natives use and find something close. Native people are not normally into looking cool. They choose their tools based on pure need.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Grasses can be cut with no edge at all if the blade is moving at a good clip.

Yes, that is how string cutters work. But when an edge is very sharp it will cut grasses and such even when slow.

The same is true for wood, you don't need a razor edge to cut small trees and braches.

Yeah, that is more of the thickness/angle.

I think it boils down to the fact that there is such a thing as too much blade.

Yeah, I prefer about the 18" ones as well, but there are much longer ones. I have used them up to 28" and they don't work well on woods then for the reason you described. The traditional martindale pattern of that length did work well on grasses and such though.

-Cliff

 

[t1mpani]

Native people are not normally into looking cool. They choose their tools based on pure need.

Oh, I dunno...

And yes, you're right--I wasn't meaning to imply that sharpness was everything. The reprofiling I was doing was more about thinning out the blade behind the edge than seriously reducing the edge bevels themselves.