Martindale #2 Golok

Horn Dog

Horn Dog

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Sep 9, 2005
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Continuing my recent golok phase of knife collecting, I found a Martindale #2 on ebay. It came in all the way from England yesterday. The Brits call these goloks "beaters", and now I know why. Too dull to chop, they are obviously used to beat things. The Martindale gives new meaning to the term "zero edge". They come with absolutely no edge at all. With just a crude outline of a primary grind for me to follow, I proceeded to grind a convex edge on the beast with my 1" x 42" belt sander. In just a few hours, I had a decent chopping edge, and a pile of steel dust. Did they really expect the customer to do this with the little file included in the sheath?
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The knife has a 13" blade and weighs about 17.5 oz, after grinding. The blade has a distal taper going from .128" at the tang to .90" at the tip. The steel is soft (thank God) at about 45 to 50 RC. The handle is wood and secured with two rivets. Fit and finish are consistent with the term "Beater". Not nearly as nice as the Condor I recently reviewed, which came with a polished convex edge that only needed a bit of touching up to shave.
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With a decent edge, the #2 can chop quite well. As sold, it can beat dents in wood with ease and beat grasses down to the ground. Balance point is about 3.25" in front of the handle for a nice blade heavy feel that works well for chopping and slashing vegetation once sharpened.
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Next up: Some beating the brush.
 
HD,

I bought one of those a couple of years ago.. It's never wound up rotation due to the weight and lack of edge. I know there are folks that like them, but I found mine to be kind of a "tweener"...
 
Time to take the golok into it's natural habitat, a mosquito infested jungle that is my back yard.
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This drainage ditch drains my neighbor's swamp, but not mine. But I do occasionally clear out some of the debris and chop the little trees that grow in it to help out some. Gives me something fun to do on those hot humid days. Here's a woody thing that needs chopping!
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After about 30 minutes of whacking every thing in my way, I decided that the Martindale Golok makes a pretty good short machete. Maybe a bit better than my Ontario on the heavier stuff. It swings faster than my Hopkinson golok, another fine peice of British steel that came very dull.
Much to my surprise, even after chopping into the dirt and chopping some hard Bay wood, the edge was still pretty good. The #2 is really not a bad beater once you put an edge on it. It should be quite useful on the trail or in camp for those who venture into thickly wooded areas.
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I concur with your findings regarding the edge. I finally got access to a belt sander the other day and gave mine the same treatment. Looking forward to testing it.
I also have a couple Martindale machetes and they come with only the teeniest of bevels. You need a belt sander for those as well. :rolleyes:
By comparison, I recently got a Tramontina Bolo and it came with a decent bevel. I thinned it out a little more by hand on a coarse stone.
 
mneedham said:
HD,

I bought one of those a couple of years ago.. It's never wound up rotation due to the weight and lack of edge. I know there are folks that like them, but I found mine to be kind of a "tweener"...
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Had I not owned a belt sander, I doubt that I would have ever bothered to use this golok. But once sharp, it does a fine job. Sure, it lacks the reach of a good Tamontina for clearing, but it chops as well as a small axe and is easier to swing in close quarters than a full length machete.
 
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AF said:
I concur with your findings regarding the edge. I finally got access to a belt sander the other day and gave mine the same treatment. Looking forward to testing it.
I also have a couple Martindale machetes and they come with only the teeniest of bevels. You need a belt sander for those as well. :rolleyes:
By comparison, I recently got a Tramontina Bolo and it came with a decent bevel. I thinned it out a little more by hand on a coarse stone.
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I think the Condors and Tramontinas are a better value, but the Martindale #2 is sort of a legend, and I wanted one. It does seem to be quite rugged. The Tramontinas are really cheap and require a lot less work to make sharp. The Condors are priced close to the Martindales, but they come with finished edges.
 
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I've been looking forward to this.

Yup, those belts came in handy didn't they ;-)

One of the most useful things for me is to mod that handle and get a good size beak on the end. I find that saves a lot of labor. Irritatingly, I don't have a completed one here to grab a pic, only a mock up 'cos I'm experimenting with an index finger stall too. A major feature attracting me to the Condor is the handle isn't a knife handle. Frankly, I think sticking a knife handle on a golok / parang / machete is kinda dumb.

The thing I like about the #2 design is the way the weight is allocated. Weight for weight it makes more sense to me than a knife that chops ...blah blah. On that, I have a question. If you were to pick any alternate tool of equivalent weight [post mod] to do what the #2 does what would it be?
 
baldtaco-II said:
I've been looking forward to this.

Yup, those belts came in handy didn't they ;-)

One of the most useful things for me is to mod that handle and get a good size beak on the end. I find that saves a lot of labor. Irritatingly, I don't have a completed one here to grab a pic, only a mock up 'cos I'm experimenting with an index finger stall too. A major feature attracting me to the Condor is the handle isn't a knife handle. Frankly, I think sticking a knife handle on a golok / parang / machete is kinda dumb.

The thing I like about the #2 design is the way the weight is allocated. Weight for weight it makes more sense to me than a knife that chops ...blah blah. On that, I have a question. If you were to pick any alternate tool of equivalent weight [post mod] to do what the #2 does what would it be?
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Easy. The Bark River Golok.
 
Horn Dog said:
Easy. The Bark River Golok.
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That's got me wondering. I would have thought a worked over #2 would have given the BRKT a good bit of competition. In fact, I'd have guessed that the BRKT may well win on the light veg but lose out on sticks. Interesting, cheers.
 
baldtaco-II said:
That's got me wondering. I would have thought a worked over #2 would have given the BRKT a good bit of competition. In fact, I'd have guessed that the BRKT may well win on the light veg but lose out on sticks. Interesting, cheers.
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The Bark River is great on light vegetation, but it's a heck of a chopper, too.

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It is in the Sheffield catalog listed as a jungle knife, but it is made by Hopkinson, not Nowill. It is under the knives listed as:

Items on this website will not be supplied to people under 18 years of age to comply with the Offensive Weapons Act 1996
 
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Parangolok!

Hey Horndog,
Have you tried flicking these at the end like a kukri or using a draw cut like on old jimbo's page?
 
Joezilla said:
Parangolok!

Hey Horndog,
Have you tried flicking these at the end like a kukri or using a draw cut like on old jimbo's page?
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Yes. That's the way I use them in the brush. Very effective. They do well in the draw cut, too. There is some technique to using big knives effectively.
 
HD,

I appreciate that pic the same way I can gaze at an image of a cold, pale ale in a glass or a pic of a nude beautiful woman. I don't actually own that blade, it is made by Abe Elias (Diving Sparrow Knife Works). I was ordering one from Abe a while back (with cocobolo grips) and my lady mucked it up by giving me both a Barkie golok and a Koster monster nessie that week as gifts, so I didn't pull the trigger... I gotta get rid of that faithless wench one of these days;)...
 
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