Tramontina Machete, Carbon Steel, Polypropylene Handle

Since it doesn’t come with a sheath, I used the Amazon delivery box and folded it over a few times and wrapped it with tape and voila.

I bought this so I could cut back brush and clear some small limbs while on my lawnmower. I have a Condor machete I love but it wasn't really long enough and they are pretty expensive now. I've heard of Tramontina but I wasn't expecting much for the price but it turned out to be exactly what I needed and it was money well spent. I'll list a couple of points that might be helpful to you if you are considering getting one.1) The first 4 inches of the blade at the handle are totally unsharpened and I mean flat. I was annoyed at first and thought it sloppy manufacture but it turned out that I really like it that way. It makes it a little safer if you need to choke up on it or if your hand slips or something. I purchased a Marbles sheath and the first few inches of the blade are exposed but because that part isn't sharp it works out perfectly.3) The blade is a little springy but I like that too. It's just the right amount of springy, anymore it would be too floppy but as it it's just right. A lot machete I've seen are rigid like a big crow bar which makes it really heavy and if you hit something at a funky angle it's very unforgiving but the Tramontina blade is light and flexible like a machete should be but not floppy.3( The handle is serviceable but nothing special. It's got a little texture to it and doesn't scream high quality but it also doesn't feel super cheap like some low end machete. The handle is just a bit narrow for me so if I hit that funky angle the handle shifts or turns in my hand a bit, that happened a few times this am. I am going to put some talon tape on it and that ought to make it perfect.4) It comes reasonably sharp and cuts decent but I took one of those yellow sharpeners with the handle (Smith's maybe?) And that turned it into almost a razor. My Condor is lightsaber sharp and passes the arm hair shave test. The Tramontina so far is just a tad less sharp, it does pop some arm hair but I don't have it insanely sharp yet but by normal standards it is really sharp.I'm extremely satisfied with it, if you want a solid working tool that cuts like a beast this is for you. If you want a mall ninja, zombie slaying sword it probably won't be the style you want. Not fancy show off my high dollars state of the art g10 handle with saw back and bottle opener but more that guy who lives in the village and uses his machete every day.

I was looking for a long, non-weather-finished machete, and this seems to satisfy me so far (after a replacement).First machete I received was fairly noticeably bent to the right in a gentle curve with some twist. Somewhat better than a sharp angle bend, but it wouldn't bend back straight after considerable effort bending the opposite direction, so I had Amazon replace it, which was thankfully quick and easy. At least I know the blade is pretty springy and durable after bending the blade fairly extremely in my attempts to straighten it.The second one I received as a replacement was nice and straight, and had a more even grind on the blade.It's a thin and fairly light overall design for the length, but its blade shape and short handle mean it's quite forward-weighted, which took some adjusting coming from swinging nimbler swords and shorter 20" latin machetes.The machete's extreme forward balance (9" or so from the top of handle) forced me to adjust my normal handshake grip and focus on getting absolute maximum palm-to-spine contact area to get consistent edge alignment, so it's a bit harder to handle than I expected. With my bare hands, it definitely wants to twist out of my desired alignment and grip fairly easily when I swing different angles in quick sequences, and that's without any contact to speak of.I'd prefer if the handle were perhaps a bit fatter and longer overall, as it twists too easily out of alignment or slips forward, and the handle's bottom corner is quite sharp against the palm when my US-large gloves hands slide down the handle at all.Adding grip tape has mostly fixed the twisting-in-the-hand feeling, and I sanded down the sharp heel of the handle, but it remains a bit stubborn on blade redirection and point control, which I suppose is exactly what you'd expect from a super-forward-weighted chopper like this. If you don't want to add some grip via gloves or grip tape or handle modifications, I'd be pretty worried about too easily losing edge alignment and control on contact with thicker branches and plants.Blade:-Thickness: ~1.5 mm or so, I don't see taper if there is any, but I don't have calipers-Material: seems like stamped steel with a brushed finish and a few blemishes-Flexibility: very springy, accepted near 90 degree (total) bends when I tried to restraighten the lemon I got; if you hold it flat horizontally, the blade just so slightly visibly sags towards the ground at the tip-Spine: flat, but corners are comfortable and not too sharp despite no visible rounding-Tip: entirely unsharpened last 1.5"-2" of the blade, rounded off to the spine; tip was basically full thickness blunt-Edge: starts 4 inches up blade, visibly ends near top of the blade, slight imperfection in upper third of blade where a divot was oversharpened? Lemon had a similar imperfection around that area.-Grind: both sides ground, only a few mm different starting point per side-Point of Balance: just over 9" from top of handleOther Notes:-the barcode sticker they stick on the blade doesn't come off clean, even after scraping, but thankfully, some isopropyl alcohol removed the leftover residue easily enoughHandle:-Full tang?: Yes, though not to the forward pinkie lip of the handle, which just has plastic and a rivet-Pain points: Molded bottom corner of handle is fairly sharp against the palm when swinging, makes it more painful if your hand slips down to it in a handshake grip, needed sanding-Sizing and grip: Bit slippery and a little smaller than I like (my hands are US gloves large most of the time) in circumference and total length; people with extra-large hands may have issues, and it twists a bit too easily in the hand without grip tape or added texturing work-lanyard hole is one third up the handle, which means it will almost certainly be under your grip if you use a lanyard; I assumed wrongly that the extended lip was where the lanyard hold was