Martindale #2 Golok vs. Livesay RCM

M

matthew rapaport

Joined
Jun 23, 1999
Messages
1,209
I recently purchased a Martindale #2 Golok from www.jungleknife.com. I've owned a beautiful Recon Combat Machete (RCM) from Newt Livesay for a couple of years. The RCM saw some work when I first got it, but I don't usually have a lot of demand for cutting the kind of wood that a heavy machete like either of these is really suited for, and have spent most of the last couple of years using much lighter and thinner machetes on grasses, weeds, and vines as they grow up around my place. I don't know what I was thinking when I got the Golok. Perhaps I didn't realize how thick it was, but when I did receive it, I could see that the only other tool I had to compare to it was my RCM. Luckily (or unluckily as the case may be) there was a wind storm here late in the week. There is a certain maple tree on my property growing very fast, too fast for its own good, and it wasn't topped off when it should have been. The result was breakage of 4 good sized branches, a significant quantity of fresh, very wet and pliable wood perfectly suited to testing both of these machetes.

These two pieces of steel seem designed, more or less, for the same mission. They are roughly the same size (18" OAL), with the RCM being considerably wider (2") through most of its length, while the Golok has a more parang shape and begins very narrow (1") just forward of the handle, widening to 2" only a few inches from the tip, then narrowing again slightly. They both weigh over a pound, with the RCM being 6 ounces heavier than the Golok. The RCM is made from thicker
stock (.204") compared to the Golok (.156), but the RCM is beautifully flat ground from the spine to just behind the secondary bevel and is only .04" thick right behind that edge. The Golok, by contrast is just plain flat, all the way from the spine to the bevel which begins 9/32" behind the edge. This is a relatively long bevel, and computes out to an edge angle of only 34 deg (included). The RCM comes from Newt ground to about 40 deg included, but I've taken that
bevel down to about where the Golok is from the factory.

Of course the RCM costs $150, compared to the Golok's $40 (incl. shipping). The RCM has a full tang and beautifully shaped micarta handle slabs. The Golok's tang goes most of the way through the handle and is well rivited to it, but is not quite full. The steel of the Golok is probably something very simple, and hardened to somewhere between 44-50 according to the jungle knife web site. The Livesay is also simple steel (1095 I believe), but hardened probably in the neighborhood of the mid 50's.

I first put them to work not on the wet fresh maple, but instead on old dry pine. I had some small pine logs about 2" in diameter, and proceded to wack at them alternatively with the RCM and Golok. The wood was hard as a rock. I flailed away with both machetes, not being particularly careful about my cuts. I alternated and cut three logs with each blade. The results suprised me... Over all, it took the same number of strokes to cut the pine with either the RCM or the Golok, and this dispite my noting that when the RCM struck right, it sank deeper than the best penetration depth I could get with the Golok. I could only surmise that I was directing the Golok better than the RCM, that is, I could put the edge where I wanted it to go a little more easily than I could with the RCM. I attribute this to three things:

1. The Golok is almost 25% lighter than the RCM
2. The Golok's center of mass is about 2" further forward as compared to the RCM
3. The Golok's handle is a little smaller in circumference (4" compared to 4.5" for the RCM).

The shape of the handle makes a big difference. The RCM has a beautiful handle, but it is very wide, while the Golok's handle is much boxier, and just happens to settle in my hand more securely than does the handle of the RCM. It should be noted that I have relatively small hands...

After hacking at the pine, I looked at the edges of both tools. There was no noticable change in the edge of the RCM. The edge of the Golok, by contrast, was rolled and pushed over much of its length - at least the whole of its sweet spot. None of these rolls was deep, maybe 1mm at the most, and most were smaller than that, but the rolling occured throughout the whole edge. Nice thing about the softer steel though is it took only moments to put the edge back where it was with a bastard file.

The next day, I attacked the maple. First I wanted to test penetration thanks to what I had noticed about the RCM on the dry pine. I went to the largest diameter maple (about 3"), and while taking care to keep both tools vertical, struck the maple with the kind of force I can manage repeatedly. The results were about what you would expect. The RCM sank 1" into the maple pretty easily, while the Golok managed only 1/2" and sometimes a little more. This was undoubtedly due to the RCM's primary grind. So what I thought I had seen on the dry wood was dramatically demonstrated on the wet stuff. Given this finding, I surmised that the RCM would out-cut the Golok 2 to 1 on this fresh maple.

But remember the Golok is a little easier to control (in my hand), and I chopped enough with each to begin to get tired, cutting some 10 logs about 2" in diameter with each machete. In the end, the RCM won averaging 8-9 strokes per cut (I was taking care to place my strikes as well as I could), as compared to 10-11 strokes for the Golok. Better, yes, but not nearly the 2 to 1 difference that the simple penetration test suggested. I surmised again, that this difference was due to my being able to control the Golok and put its edge where I wanted it more often than the RCM.

After all this cutting, the edge of the RCM still showed no noticable degradation! The edge of the Golok was also in pretty good shape; not untouched, but not nearly as badly rolled as it had been after only three dry logs. All in all, I was very impressed with the performance of the Golok on fresh wood!

My conclusion is that the quality of the tool in terms of its steel, heat treat, and engineering (e.g., the RCM's flat grind), while important, has disproportionately less effect than does the simple shape and size of the tool's handle in relation to the user's hand along with the over-all ability to direct the edge competently which is also influenced by over-all weight and balance. Given a larger hand, and more adeptness with a heavy machete, I have no doubt that the RCM would have surpassed the Golok at something like 2 to 1, and especially so when you take into account the need to re-sharpen the Golok more often... I do note however that it is much easier to sharpen the Golok than the much harder steel of the RCM.
 
I have heard that the rcm is a hell of a knife i have been thinking about getting one for myself if you dont mind me asking do you have any good pics of the rcm that you can email me as the ones on newts site are not very good.

Lee Brooks
Knifemaker
BROOKSKNIVES.canada


brooksknives@hotmail.com
 
A nice review. I have a Golok I got from www.cutsforthknives.com Daren provides excellent service.
Newt's heat treat is simply excellent, the best 1095 in the industry.
I think the RCM is treated to about 60RC, and despite the hardness is not brittle at all. It is an ideal heat treat for that size blade.
The Golok is made of something akin to 1065 (ie a simple steel with .65% carbon content and some maganese) according to Ken Vokes of MArtindale, who is also a great guy.
There are some major differneces between the knives, first the RCM has Newt's handle, which is great; and the RCM has a primary grind which really makes a huge difference in regards to binding.

Chad
 
matthew rapaport :

My conclusion is that the quality of the tool in terms of its steel, heat treat, and engineering (e.g., the RCM's flat grind), while important, has disproportionately less effect than does the simple shape and size of the tool's handle in relation to the user's hand along with the over-all ability to direct the edge competently which is also influenced by over-all weight and balance.
Click to expand...

Yes, you can make a better knife out of better materials, but it isn't trivial to do so, and not universal by any means. Regarding hit placement, if you have been using other tools for awhile, your skill with something different will be quite low at first. Generally I tend to ignore performance until hit placement settles down which doesn't take very long. Of course you can, just as you did, simply look at raw penetration to estimate the performance ratio in a best case senario.

Is there any difference in the stiffness of either blade?

Hard wood indeed, it isn't trivial to put a visible dent in an edge of the profile you decribe on the Golok even at the lower RC they are run.


-Cliff
 
Is there any difference in the stiffness of either blade?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response Cliff... The pine was (is) hard indeed! How can I give you an answer to your question above? The RCM certainly feels stiffer, and on badly made chops would bounce more than the Golok, so that makes me think the RCM is stiffer. Of course I can't flex either one of them by hand, so this is a subjective assessment based only on the look and feel of both blades, and how they bounced, along with my experience sharpening the Golok which took very little indeed. A few strokes with a medium bastard file and it was toothy but razor sharp!

I will say that, sited along the spine, the RCM is straight as an arrow, while the Golok had a very slight little dog leg tweak about mid way down the spine that was there when I got it.

You are right about practice where control is concerned. I noticed that with a little practice, the RCM began to perform better and better as compared to the Golok, but as I continued cutting and began to get tired, my control of the RCM degenerated markedly, while my control of the Golok stayed relatively constant througout. Bottom line I think is that the handle of the RCM is just too large for me, and I would have to work a long time with it to gain control consistently.

I am very impressed with the Golok. Much nicer than my Ontario, my other "low end" heavy machete.
 
Nice review Matthew!
I handled one of the Martindale Goloks recently and while I like the handle shape, I thought it might tend to move around a bit in heavy use, requiring grip readustments. Did you experience any of this?
 
Thank you. No, the handle has stayed rock solid and I don't see any problem with it unless the wood rots out from under the rivets at some point, they're pretty solid. Remember though I've only cut a dozen or so 2" fresh maple branches and three dry pine branches, so that's hardly a lot of work. I'm not sure where I'll get a chance to use it next. Most of the opportunities I have for machete use around here call for a much lighter tool, but I am going to have to fell another pine tree by the end of the summer I'm afraid...

Cliff, I discover that I can just slightly bow each machete with my hands. Not very much, but a tiny bit. The RCM feels the stiffer of the two this way, but its a pretty close call. Same for the Ontario which I also tried to bend...
 
In regards to stiffness for a large blade, the only functional advantage comes in removing the blade from thick wood, unless you want to do dedicated prying of course. Generally you can notice a pretty big difference between the low end machetes and the high end knives in this regard because of the large RC difference (15 points or so). However the Golok carries a lot of thickness because of the lack of a primary grind, which does give it a lot of strength. The Jungle Knife gets pretty thin near the tip, so can't clear wood there readily, but the Golok doesn't have as much distal taper.

Regarding the warp, I also noticed a slight bobble in the Jungle Knife, which I missed for quite a while. It is just in the spine though, the edge is straight. Handles are indeed very personal. I have used some that I found poor and had friends be very pleased. Unlike geometry aspects for the blade, the grip can't be nailed down so readily. On the positive, while the weather around he is pretty flaky (-1 today, 22 expected for tomorrow), we have lots of wood to cut, so there is no shortage of material for blade use. Most of it is just family owned building lots which are just going to be cleared before sale.

-Cliff
 
Matthew,
I am sorry my above post was very unclear. I wanted to know if the handles moved around in your hand at all when you were using it, not about the handles coming loose from the tang.
 
i have one of the jungle knife martindale machetes and had the same result when chopping through wood, with the blade rolling and deforming, and yes a file does fix it but the edge degradation after only an hours work was significant, i also compare dthis to one of newts RTAK knives and and found the same results .
alex
 
Did you see the edge deformation all along the edge of the Jungle Knife, or only towards the tip?

-Cliff
 
Hi Frank...

Not that I noticed. But I long ago developed a "heavy machete" technique that involves loosening my grip as I bring the machete back, and tighten up only as I snap down into the medium to be cut. This technique has helped me to greatly reduce hand fatigue, but as a result its hard to tell about your question since my hand is constantly loosening and re-gripping the handle. I never noticed it slip when I was holding it tight. I think this is because (at least in part) it is sized right for my hand.

Cliff, I don't know about the jungle knife, but the Golok was distorted (by the very hard wood) all along the edge. The soft fresh wood had much much less effect on the edge. Also as with your Jungle Knife, there is no dongle in the edge, its only in the spine. I still like it a lot...

I have a few more pieces of the maple, some up to 3" in dia., so I'll be doing some more cutting today...
 
Regarding the cutting, yes, my biggest problem is overgripping the handle, you need to relax and just use enough force to make the cut. I tend to squash the handle if I don't pay attention and thus my hand tends to fatigue rapidly. This is more of a problem with new blades, once you get used to the feel of a knife I tend to relax as you grow confident in its abilities.

For the edges, on all the martindales I have seen (almost a dozen), the angles all run more acute towards the tip and so does the stock thickness. The tips on some of them get as acute as 5 degrees per side, and 0.020-0.030" thick, thus they are readily damaged on small diameter woods, even soft ones. The golok I have is much more robust that that though as it is obviously for woody vegetation.

However just as you noted, when limbing, I saw damage of about 0.5 mm deep towards the tip, and less until about half the blade length where it was durable enough. This was on the harder woods. However at the angle it was sharpened (14-15 degrees), it should have been able to take it. I did notice however that the Martindales do have burnt burrs, and the edges are in fact hollow ground.

After a brief filing to remove the damage and the hollow from the edge grind, I repeated the cutting (limbing of a dozen small trees), with only one minor edge ripple resulting at the very tip. So in short, the blades will most likely show a strong improvement in edge durability with a sharpening to remove 0.5 mm of metal or so and flatten (or convex if you prefer) the edge.

On some of them, like the Jungle Knife, the edge needs to be significantly reprofiled (thicker) near the tip, to make it suitable for small diameter woods and knots.

-Cliff
 
Matthew;
Nice report well done. In reference to the hardness on the Recon Combat Machete (RCM) , and the WASP, or the new LAK4 "AK" Machete.

All three of these knives (machetes) get the same heat treat and are made from the same steel as a standard production piece. I use 1095 high carbon tool steel, and heat treat the blades to a 59-60 Rockwell on the "C" scale. I do what is known as a triple draw after the oil quench on the blades. The triple draw is a process where the heat treated blade is removed from the oil and "draw" at three (3) different temperatures to help bring about a tighter and more defined grain structure in the metal. All this means is I want the blade to be stronger, and tougher so it will stand up to the mud, the blood, and the beer.

Blade right out of the oil will run about 63 too 64 on the "C" scale before the draw process that takes four (4) hours per blade. I try to do 40 or 50 of the larger blades at a time to reserve time and speed up production. Smaller knives like the WOO or Little Pecker might have as many as 500 blades in the heat treat batch at a time.

RCM, WASP, and AKs are all made from .204 inch 1095 HC steel as standard production knives. At the moment I am finishing some WASP that are on a military contract that are made from .214" material with a special paper micarta handle material. All these blade talked about in this post are also parkarized.

With that I would ask Matthew how the finish was holding up on his RCM. You bought the RCM Matthew back in May of 1999 along with a Air Assault, and a G-45 Neck Knife.

Matthew how is the parkarized finish on these knives holding up.
Thanks for the post and the kind words.
Newt Livesay
maker
Newt Livesay Web Pages
 
A really informative and fair report.

There are a couple of real truths that stand out.

The Golok is a classic design that has been standard British Military issue for years, probably since WWII or there abouts. The design and build just works brilliantly for the myriad of conditions and tasks that these blades are used for. Service issue is harsh and uncaring. The affectionate name of "tree basher" doesn't really do the knife justice.
Low cost but functinal and robust. The shape of the blade allows for them to be versitile. The weight is about right and a good compromise between work, control and low fatigue. The steel is a sensible compromise between edge retention, damage limitation and servisability. The handle works for most people. Lastly the Golock is repeatable to the point that it can be put into large scale production easily.
Matthew's report highlights just how good this knife is, but also its limitations.

The RCM is a wholely more refined blade. For us blade aficionados there is just more effort put into this knife. More into the steel. More into the edge profile design. This is something we look for in a knife and are willing to pay a premium for.
The two knives are not the same which is born out by the results. The differences in their comparitive weight bears this out most markedly. I am confident that over a longer test period the RCM would show its higher pedigree.

The RCM I should think is still evolving being under continued evaluation and improvement, whereas the Golok has nowhere really further to go.


One test that could be interesting is for such blades to be slammed into a mound of aggregate/large stone pebbles. Its may be a real cringe test, but these longer blades when at work do invariably hit the dirt and ought to be able to survive/manage such abuse. What do you think?
 
High impacts off of hardned inclusions is something that can't really be avoided. Using a machete this past weekend to clear some grass in a field I hit it quite soundly off a buried rock, caved in a section about 1mm deep, by about 1 mm long. Later on while chopping up some scrap I chopped into a screw twice with a bolo. I do check it for nails and such, however this one had broken off inside. Again, just indented the edge about 1 mm, not nearly as wide as the rock impact of cource.

The best way to repair such damage (short of filing it all off), is to file out the dents into serrations. This raises the cutting ability in that area, and prevents the damage from spreading. The serrations will then gradually be removed with regular sharpening. These kinds of impacts (rocks and nails) are really only a problem with overly brittle blades like the popular high carbon stainless, or the really low end blades that are just barely hardened.

A worse test for such blades is high lateral impacts into small diameter hardwoods. Find a really ingrown tree, where the branches are so thick that you can't chop into one without hitting another. This is often the case on dead wood (low light), and thus it takes a lot of force to cut (or break) the branches, and the blade can get a high load across the edge. This can induce major rippling or gross fracture.

-Cliff
 
Cliff, I also tend to live with the odd deep damage associated with hitting something very hard. Gone are the days when I had the patience to take every dink out. I agree it is best to round them off a bit and after time they do get removed from multiple full sharpenings.

Ripple damage: I've only really noticed on ultra thin machetes or very thin large kitchen knives. I think when a blade reaches a certain thickness/mass its more able to brush off these stresses. The steel also needs to be soft enough as higher tempered steel tend to snap or cresent chip out rather than retain a buckle. Machetes jamming into tougher materials are often twisted free which on thin steel is asking for a warped edge.

I also use a loose grip, with variable pressure. Light machete's can send a vibration down the wrist/arm (which I loath) when they strike something too hard.

I forgot to make clear that I haven't handled a RCM so any coment I may make is pure conjecture. But all credit for producing higher end long large blades as for me its where blades are really tested.
Quite a long time ago there was a maker producing the swamp rabbit?? machetes and parangs, can anyone put some light on this? There were some designs that I really fancied but none ever got over to the UK, but they remind me of some of the AK type designs.
 
Newt, the finish on the RCM is standing up beautifully. A little thinning behind most of the edge, around the tip and down a few inches of the spine, and a few dings and streaks here and there, otherwise, it is intact. To quantify it, its probably 95% intact.

Greenjacket, further testing bears out your faith in the RCM pedigree, but still with a caveat which is where the essentially subjective part of these tests comes into play. I've cut a lot of maple now. Some pieces up to 5" in diameter. I alternate RCM and Golok as I work my way from wider to narrower pieces. When my <b>arm is fresh, and I pay careful attention to my swings</b>, the RCM beats the Golok in my case by almost 50%. A 4" piece will take me 25-30 strokes with the RCM and maybe 35-40 with the Golok. Four hundred strokes later, both tools show marked degradation in performance - and its not the tool of course, its me - but now they are about equal in hit count!

There is no doubt that the RCM sinks deeper when it hits right. I have no doubt that in competent hands, it would do better hands down. The size of the handle in my hands will not change however, and no matter how competent I get directing the RCM, that handle will always be a little too big around to be comfortable for very long, while the Golok handle stays more comfortable in my hand indefinately.

As for edge retention, I have to admit the Golok is holding up pretty good on the fresh wood. I haven't sharpened it since doing the dry wood (and its cut a lot of wet wood now). The edge has lost its really sharp feeling though and needs to be redone now. By contrast the RCM edge is doing fine. I wouldn't sharpen it again yet; it still seems to have a long way to go.
 
Yes, it is edge thickness that is very critical to avoid rippling. You don't need a lot though, 0.04" is enough even for the softer steels. Even on long and heavy blades (0.750g and 18"), I have only seen ripples up to 0.03" and so, and this is on really heavy hacking on ingrown wood. It isn't a problem on most current production blades as the edges average much thicker, 0.05"+ is common. However there are a lot of brittle allowy being used, and these can cause the blowouts you describe. You can hammer a dent back, and even use the blade without doing so. However a big chip is a rather large stress risor which will allow a gross break fairly easily.

Back to the Golok, there are modifications which could be made to radically alter its performance. First among these is the addition of a primary grind. I would estimate that the cutting ability could be doubled with a full thinning, and that the chopping ability could be increased by ~50%, both without a loss of durability for wood work, which means the ability to take knots without excessive damage. The hardness could be raised to ~56-58 RC. This would greatly raise the strength and impaction resistance, and thus reduce damage on hard contacts. The RC should still be low enough so that fracture toughness would not be a concern.

These changes would come at a price though, which could limit its market. It is however, NIB, a solid working blade for woody vegetation and I would readily prefer it NIB over many high end blades such as the Cold Steel Trailmaster for example.

-Cliff
 
Matthew,
I think handle fit to ones hands plays a huge part. There are quite a few knives that I just wouldn't buy because the handles just don't suit me. The design of the Golok works; my favourite is the one found on my Blackjack Marauder II, (my hands are not that big either). The weight of a blade also dictates what technique I employ. Too heavy a blade then I use it more like an axe and let the blade's momentum do the work. This works for chopping but trying finer tasks with too weighty a blade really makes a dogs dinner of the job. Its one reason the Golok works for so many people - its controlable.

I would think that once you move on to some dryer harder wood the Golok will need more upkeep whereas the harder RCM should hold up much longer. The difference will really start to show.

Cliff, if you were to have made a 2002 Golok with your improved profile what steel would you employ. We could have micarta or even nicer a moulded sythetic handle as found on my Marauder and a well made cordura sheath. Price kept below $130. Just daydreaming.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top