A shot of the Camp and Trail machete from Ontario, 12" blade :
The Military ON-18 model has the same basic design with an 18" blade. Both are made from 1/8" thick 1095 carbon steel.
The review consists of :
The ON-18 Military issue machete has an overall length of 23.5". The primary edge grind is 6/7 degrees per side and 0.26 inches wide. The secondary edge bevel is ground at 16/17 degrees per side and the bevel is 0.02" thick . The ON-CT1 Traditional Cutlass Camp and Trail Machete has the same general specifications with a twelve inch blade. The edge is 0.015" thick. Both blades have a black oxide coating and thermalset plastic grips. On both the handle slabs were not even and not flush with the tang. The grinds also did not sweep out fully to the tip and started more than an inch in front of the handle.
UPDATE : The Military model appears to be discontinued, it is no longer listed on the Ontario machete webpage.
The machetes were used alongside a number of large bowie styled blades and after a fresh sharpening were generally more efficient than knives such as the TUSK and Marine Raider Bowie. The machetes simply have more reach, especially the Military version with the 18" blade. The machetes however required a full sharpening before they were able to cut light vegetation well as they did not have the required level of sharpness from the manufacturer. The edge retention was much better than the Tramontina machete, in the same class as the Barteaux and Martindale models, able to work for and extended time (hours) on light vegetation before needing to be sharpened.
The machetes were compared to a 20" Sirupati khukuri limbing some pine and other soft woods. The large machete could match the reach of the khukuri and was generally a more efficient cutting tool. The smaller machete cut well also but its lack of reach would make the khukuri the preferred tool. However after about an hour of limbing the handle slabs loosened on the Military machete. The machetes were then used to cut some dead wood limbs and in minutes the 18" model suffered gross fracture and lost a section the edge about three quarters of an inch long and a quarter of an inch deep. The smaller machete soon developed similar problems, it badly rippled and suffered multiple fractures up to a sixteen of an inch deep and an eight of an inch wide.
UPDATE : after doing such work for several years with many such blades of varying shapes and materials, considering the edges were from 0.015" to 0.020" thick it isn't surprising that some damage was suffered in the above work. However it is possible to get a much more durable steel which when over stressed will simply bend instead of suffering gross fracture, machetes made from Tramontina, Barteaux and Martindale were found to be much more durable and could easily handle such work.
The machetes can be filed readily and respond well even to any hones. There are no issues with sharpening.
The eighteen inch machete was sliced into book and the number of pages cut used as a measure of sharpness, an average of five cuts was used. Spruce was chopped into two hundred times with heavy swings and the the book was recut to check the rate of blunting. This was repeated four times to produce the following table :
| Round 0 | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | Round 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # of pages | 84 (3) | 61 (5) | 60 (1) | 62 (3) | 51 (2) |
| # of slices | 16 (3) | 45 (5) | |||
The edge retention thus on the push cut and on a slice was both descreased significantly in just a short session of chopping.
UPDATE : this review was written in 1999 which was when the methods for examing edge retention were still being developed. However the above very crude work still shows how push cutting and slicing sharpness can be effected at different rates and it is a nonlinear process and is still precise enough to show the Ontario is ahead of the Tramontina for such work.
The large machete was later subjected to some hard edge impacts in the section of edge not effected by the hard wood chopping :
Both machetes were flexed in a vice to check the ductility and flexibility. The 12" blade went to 45 degrees and returned almost cleanly to true. As it passed 45 degrees the handle material fractured. The blade snapped cleanly at about 90. The large bent close to 180 even after being scored with a dremel, the handle also suffered slight cracks. Both blades shows almost no set before they broke.
The grip on both machetes was fairly slick and had low security, however it was not abrasive and in general the comfort was high. The section of the eighteen inch machete was used for several months splitting wood to make kindling. The handle slabs eventually broke apart under the vibrations induced as it was driven through rounds with a mallet.
The 12" Ontario machetes make a solid good large utility knife, able to cut alongside bowie styled working blades, though it only has a fraction of the edge retention of the better large knives. It fares better on light grasses and brush than actual wood work, and it has durability issues with harder woods.
The 18" Military version does not do very well on wood working, even on the softer woods where it does not have concerns about edge fragility, it will bind excessively on thick wood chopping. However the much greater reach makes it a much more efficient tool for clearing such vegetation than something like the TUSK.
Overall, these machetes are directly outperformed by blades from Barteaux and Martindale, and Tramontina.
Comments can be emailed to cliffstamp[REMOVE]@cutleryscience.com and seen in the following ARCHIVED thread :
| Last updated : | Thu Jun 24 00:38:13 NDT 2004 |
| Originally written: | Thu Sep 23 11:57:20 NDT 1999 |