Excited to get it. Even in the midwest I find myself wanting a machete more than a chopper on most trips to the woods. I spend a lot of time in a river basin and there is a lot of undergrowth to clear when we make our camps, especially during dry years where the river doesn't do its spring flood and wipe the area clean.
I got the idea to make a high end machete after hacking a trail on my parents farm with a 10in chopper. I had this big bad knife that was great for chopping hardwood but failed pretty badly at actual trailblazing. A big chopper is not the ideal tool for taking out thorn bushes, honeysuckle, young locust trees and the remaining plethora of nasty underbrush you might find in the woods. I realized after a day of wearing myself out swinging a big knife and making very little progress that a machete was the right tool for the job. Only problem was that there were zero high quality machetes out there. I didn't want to swing a $20 piece of junk all day.
That experience led me to make the Fell Beast a few years later. But the Fell Beast is still not a true machete, its a heavy machete or machete chopper hybrid.
After alot of feedback from my customers, it was pretty apparent that a "true" machete was needed. I ran into alot of issues getting a steel that would work. 52100 was unavailable, AEBL was warping out, and other stuff like S7 and 80CRV2 aren't available in sub 1/8th thickness.
Luckily, I was able to score pretty much all of the sub .090 3V on the market and use it for this run. The TGM is looking very promising and I'm stoked to hear the feedback from everyone on how they perform. I think the TGM is going to be in a league of its own.