My $6 WalMart Machete

G

gud4u

Joined
Jan 6, 2004
Messages
551
I'm not a 'Jungle Jim' type, and really have no business buying a machete. But, for $6.08 (tax included), why not. Cheap toy. If you really want to irritate the hell out of your spouse, waving a machete around works perfectly!

You wouldn't expect a cheap machete to have a well-formed edge, and you'd be right. Edge is perfectly dull - about 1/16" perfectly flat/blunt edge between unevenly-formed bevels. Accidental cuts would be near-impossible.

The steel seems better than I expected. I used a mill bastard (single-cut) file that I keep for sharpening my mower-blade, and judging by resistance to filing, blade hardness was about the same as the rotary blade on my mower. Getting an initial working edge required about an hour of hand-filing.

The plastic handle slabs are hand-filling with no rough edges. Fits my medium-size hand well, providing good wrist rotational-control.

Since I have no trees to chop or acreage to clear, I used the machete to trim some pine boughs and rough-trim a 50' hedge. Using the final 6" of the blade and the high speed of the blade-tip, it did a good job of rough-trimming the hedge. The thickness of the handle slabs provided good wrist control of blade angle of attack. Precision suffered a bit due to repeated hysterical warnings by my spouse.

That's not much of a test, but there was no apparent dulling of the 6" of edge that did the actual work on 50' of hedge (English Privet). Any perceived 'dullness' was due simply to build-up of green vegetable matter from the hedge. This machete seems like excellent value. I suspect it would do nicely for heavier work, accompanied by a file in your pocket.

$6 well-spent!
 
Friends of mine have had those before. Expect the handle to break if you hit anything solid with it.
 
Yeah if thats the all black one in the green sheath then expect the handles to break. However the blade is amazingly durable.:thumbup:
 
I have one of those. It takes me about 30 seconds to sharpen it on a bench sander. Last January it took me about 5 minutes to make a 7 foot christmas tree fit into a yard debris bag - it loppped off the branches like nobody's business.

The nice part about a $9 machete is you don't mind using it in abusive situations - like heavy duty weeding where you're shoving the tip into dirt and rocks. I use mine frequently for gardening and yardwork.
 
I picked one up to see how bad it is and when I got it home the first thing I noticed was the handle rattles. I am afraid to even swing it in the air. I think one of these days I will pry it off and make a better handle for it (anything would be better) but who knows when I'll get around to it. There are a lot of things I'm planning to do one of these days....
 
Cold Steel's machetes can be had for about 8 bucks. I have two of them, the 18" Latin Machete and the Bolo Machete. I can recommend both and don't really see the point in buying a $6 machete with an apparently crappy handle.
 
Quiet Storm said:
Cold Steel's machetes can be had for about 8 bucks. I have two of them, the 18" Latin Machete and the Bolo Machete. I can recommend both and don't really see the point in buying a $6 machete with an apparently crappy handle.
Click to expand...

The point is to complain about them...
what good is a knife forum if you can't complain about something... Hell, people complain about Striders, Sebenzas, and yeah, cold steels...
 
I got one the other day. I brought it home and cut and a swedge after my bk7 using the cutting bit on my dremel. then I sharpened the swedge then the rest of the blade with the dremel then moved it to the sharpmaker. I got it suprisingly sharp for a 6 dolar peice of shit. I broke of the plastic handle off and double cord wraped it. now I have a 18'' sharp ass bowie knife. I started just to make the tip sharp and turned out with something pretty cool. I've been using it as a big throwing knife. I can stick the tip completely through a peice of 1/2 inch ply with a full turn. big fun for 6 bucks!!!
 
Good for you, gud4u!

I got two of those $5 dollar machetes because there's no way I'd spend $6 on a single machete. Too rich for my blood.
 
I found the ones with the injection molded handles from Harbor Freight to also be really good, they can take the abuse, I cut the nubs off the handles so i can use them for juggling.
 
I too have a similar machete, serves it's purpose well from anything from clearing brush to being a fire poker. Sure it doesn't hold an edge too well but I just run an accusharp over it and its good as new. Too bad i lost the sheath though.

-Lindey
 
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