This review consists of :
The Garden Machete is hand-forged and has a laminated steel construction. There are no details available on what steels are used in the laminate. The handle is made from red beech. The scabbard is a plan wood case. The blade length is 10" and the overal length is 16" . Some specifications on this one :
Initial impressions :
The initial sharpness is decent for a large knife, it takes 240 (1) g to cut Esprit baisting thread, and takes 0.5 cm to cut light jute under 500 g of tension. This is about 30% of optimal sharpness. With this sharpness the knife slices newsprint well and will scrape shave a little.
Comparing the rough carving ability to a
#1260 Mora on some pine (0.5x1.5") making
two inch points the relative ability was kind of interesting. The bush
knife has a more acute edge, almost half of the angle, but while it has
an advantage it is never close to what would be expected from the angle
ratio which would predict about a 40% cutting advantage.
When light force is used with the knives,
5-15 lbs, the bush knife has clear advantage but only about
20 (5%). The reason that the performance does not increase as much
as might be expected due to the angle comparison alone is that the Mora
has a much more efficient handle/blade design for power cuts next to the
handle. With the Mora the blade is right next to the handle so full
power can be used with no counter torque. However the sharpened
edge on the bush knife starts significantly infront of the edge and the
top of the handle is squarish which prevents a full forward grip. In fact when
very heavy force is used (50-60 lbs) the Mora actually pulls ahead
by about the same amount, 20 (5) % because of the strong counter torque
of the bush knife in really heavy cuts. Of course wrist strength is critical
here, the stronger the wrist the lower the effect the counter torque
will make.
ESEE Junglas chopping some local woods.
One thing which would please a lot of people is that the initial
sharpness on this knife, which is obviously meant to be a light
machete, is actually going to be higher than most kitchen knives.
This bush knife easily sliced up bread, including a number of very
hard crusted rustic italian and french multi-grain loaves. Yes it did
require a "dead" pass on the break to break the skin and start the cut
but it was able to easily slice the bread without and damage and very easily
though it would be outperformed
in regards to force required and ease of starting a cut
by a dedicated bread knife with either
a scalloped or x-coarse finish. But again this is a matter of a couple
of pounds of force and the lack of the starting cut.
Moving on to a tomato, another standard test of sharpness, the bush knife
did very well, easily making thin slices on a not so fresh tomato and
required no dead slices to start and immediately started the cut right
as the draw was initiated. The dropped blade works well right to a cutting
board and essentially this acts very much like a heavy slicing knife.
Outside of the weight, which is about double for a dedicated kitchen
knife of its type, it works pretty much ideally for this type of work. No
handle issues and just a nice long blade with a very thin and acute
edge which cuts very well. This of course is not stainless and so will
start to patina immediately in use. This would need to be dryed and likely
even oiled very diligently to prevent surface corrosion.
Cutting up some materials alongside the MT-151 :
Comments can be emailed to Knife Review :
Most of the pictures in the above are in the Bush Knife
album at PhotoBucket.
| Last updated : | 11:29:2011 |
| Originally written: | 11:29:2011 |