Promedoca machete from the DR - what kind of steel?

[BluesHarp]

My daughter brought me home a fairly cheap tourist souvenir from the Dominican Republic this summer--a machete with about a 21" blade. There is a stamp of a bull and "Promedoca Dominican Rep." in the blade. The steel has a kind of light "brushed" grind finish running the long direction. No edge at all. Interestingly, after some research I'm pretty sure the carved wood handle is made of Guayacan wood, or lignum vitae, the hardest and heaviest wood known to man. It's very hard to get. I made another post about this somewhere else on BladeForums.

I decided to clean it up a little--I'm a knifemaker--but don't intend to use it. I just hang it on the wall, but wanted to put a good edge on it. Just from its response on the belt grinder (spark patterns, etc.) and a few simple file tests, it seems to be good high carbon steel. I have no idea what the composition is, or what kind of heat treatment it has had. Anybody have a guess, or know definitely what this Promedoca steel is? I don't think I'll go so far as to get a Rockwell test on it or anything, but I'm curious what the quality of steel is.

With the full tang pinned handle made of lignum vitae, I'd consider this a "working" machete and not just a tourist artifact. The sheath is decorative and made of a hard leather with some carving, and a few vinyl tassels.

 

[AVigil]

I do not know about that specific one, but down there the matchete is used every day on the campo.

When I lived in Guatemala their machetes were indestructible. We would put the tip on the ground and push the handle down bending the blade until it was in a C configuration. When we let go it sprung right back to straight.

I still have 2 from Guatemala and they work great.

One strange thing is seeing all the 1 armed men carrying matchete's. They often would get into fights and cut each others arms off.