Who has broken a machete?

E

elasmonut

Joined
Feb 15, 2006
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Machetes are usually very thin carbon steel heat treated between 50-60 rc.
Ive pounded on Martindales, Tramontinas, Cold steel, Ontario and others, dented a few edges, and filed them back to sharp
But has anyone actually snapped one, and if so how?
I see people here bangin on about high alloy, high carbide, even stainless machetes, IMO a machete needs to be thin and tough. Simple carbon steel with medium carbon content would be my choice. So what do you avid users out there think of super steel, stainless, or high alloy machetes?
 
elasmonut said:
IMO a machete needs to be thin and tough. Simple carbon steel with medium carbon content would be my choice.
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A simple and tough stainless steel like AEB-L would be even better than a simple carbon steel. You don't lose on toughness and you gain stain resistance.
 
Machetes are rough dirty tools that regularly come into contact with the ground, rocks and metal debris. I remember from Stephen’s Incidents of Travel in the Yucatan Peninsular, that he mentions how he would often discover these ancient temples when his machete would chop through the vines and bounce off the stone. An inexpensive tough medium hard steel is ideal for this.


n2s
 
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Mine are mostly 1075 and 420HC, all in good health, but they are thicker goloks and parangs.
 
never broke one. have dented and mangled edges and broke pieces out hitting hidden hard objects while clearing overgrown piles.

I'm okay with 10xx and 5160 type carbon steels type machetes. dont really need a stainless one, but aeb or 420hc id be fine with too. dont really need a tool steel or super steel one. have an l6 one and a Mecha Mecha made titanium and its great..maybe my favorite user. sure would like Buck to make one though.
 
I've seen a few pics of some Ontario machetes (old mil style) that were broken or chipped somehow. Mostly the sawback ones, which just invites disaster. Perhaps they are tempered a bit harder than the beater machetes and 1095 may be a bit on the brittle side. Or perhaps they are a bit heavier with a slightly thinner edge so people chop thicker/harder stuff.

A step up from the plain 10xx steels might be 5160, 80CRV2 or even 52100. But the heat treatment of a particular steel makes a huge difference in overall performance. Thanks to Larrin (Knife Steel Nerds), I've read a bit about that lately.
 
Never broke one. Used them hard though. Sawmill blade steel (i.e. presumably something like L6 or 1080), 1084, 5160, 15N20, 8670, AEB-L. These steels all proved to be excellent machete steels in my experience.
 
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