A couple of machetes were used to cut up some metals, mainly to get some perspective on what this demands of a knife. The following list of objected were chopped into with both machetes, six cuts were made each time :
The Tramontina went through the first bar with no damage. On the next copper bar it made it half way and took small dents in the edge about 0.1 to 0.2 millimeters deep. It failed to make a clean cut through the steel tubing and the edge was pushed out to the side about one millimeters and indented for about 5 millimeters in length to a depth of 0.4 mm. It could not cut through the metal bar but was uneffected by moderate force chops.
The Ontario cut through the first copper bar easier than the Tramontina machete but rippled about 0.5 millimeters to the side in several places. It went through the next copper bar with similar effort and rippled to a greater extent, with damage up to 5 millimeters long. It also cut clean through the steel tubing suffering and edge deformation of 0.5 millimeters to the side with impaction of 0.2 millimeters in depth and 2.5 millimeters long. It also could not cut the steel bar and lost a piece of edge about 5 millimeters long and 0.6 millimeters deep.
The Ontario suffered worse damage than the Tramontina except on the steel tubing. Here since the Ontario could make a clean cut where the Tramontina could not which greatly lowered the stress on the Ontario machete.
The Tramontina is actually much softer than the Ontario, which can actually cut pieces out of the Tramontina. This should make the Tramontina much easier to impact and bend. However the edge profiles are not identical. At 5.2 millimeters back from the edge, the Tramontina is 2.0 millimeters thick, the Ontario is only 1.6 millimeters thick. The Ontario machete is also significantly heavier 480 g (for the 12") as opposed to 332 for the Tramontina. Since the Ontario is much heavier it will impact with more energy under similar efforts and since its edge profile is slimmer it has much lower strenth than the Tramontina even if the steels were identical.
To eliminate the mass factor the steel bar described in the above was used as a baton on the edges of both machetes hard enough to indent the Tramontina and the Ontario was not effected showing its greater hardness. The energy is enough to overcome the Tramontina's resistance to compression, but not pass the fracture point on the Ontario's. However in actual use however the mass will obviously come into place and the Ontario will tend to suffer damage more readily, for example chopping into a coat hanger with both machetes (using enough force to cut the metal almost half of the time) caused dents about 0.3 x 1.4 millimeters on the Tramontina and much larger chips, about 0.6 x 4 millimeters on the Ontario.
The Ontario machete and several stainless steel fixed blades from Fallkniven where used to chisel cut through the steel bar described in the above. Under similar impacts, the stainless steel knives lost large pieces out of their edges the size of a wooden pencil eraser and the Ontario machete suffered no significant damage.
UPDATE : along with the edge thickness, the edge angle
is also very important and can have a strong influence on the edge
durability so it needs to be taken into consideration as well.
| Last updated : | Wed Apr 16 11:14:57 NDT 2003 |
| Origionally written : | Wed Oct 27 10:06:43 NDT 1999 |