My favorite machete these days is the Condor Golok. It is certainly not American made however.
Really?
Not to derail my own thread, but I haven't had good luck with that tool.
I had a 1st generation that lost the handle knob after 10 min of light work.
Sent it back and it was replaced by a full tanged 2nd generation that had a fold/flaw.
I've still got the one that replaced it.
Out of the box, the edge is too
thick* to cut anything but the most succulent of grass.
So I had to regrind it.
The handle assembly is so round that it wants to rotate in the hand on hard cuts. Not good if you have to choke up on it and hack instead of using the handshake/ball grip snap chop.
There was also a horrible buzzing vibration on heavy cuts that caused the pins to start to walk out.
So I pulled the scales off, flattened them and re-assembled. That helped. Some.
The POB was too far out, so I nipped the tip. This also helped with the excessive vibration.
The paint on the blade was still a bit tacky so I stripped it.
...after all that it is still inferior in pretty much every way to its line-sister the much thinner, cheaper, uglier spoonbill bolo.
*redonkulous thick.
