Hypothetically speaking, If someone wanted to make a shit-ton

>>1123597
>where would they find suitable scrap steel and scrap lumber?
on google

gtfo

As someone who has used a machete a lot, If you want to make then comfortable avoid plastic or wood, use rubber.

>>1123603
Is it because rubber gives you better traction or is it because it's a softer material?

>>1123603
Rubber gives blisters.

>>1123597
Don't use scrap. Just buy steel stock. It will be cheaper because its ready to be used.

Machetes don't need much machining.
Just cut out the spape, heat treat, and grind the edge.

>>1123615
If buying steel stock is the better option, what type of steel is the best in terms of price versus quality.
Also, is there any specific method of heat treating that would give the best results?

>>1123620
g o o g l e.
High carbon steel and martenization
I'm not gonna spoon feed you any more

>>1123624
I've been googling, and gonna get back to that. The advice was much appreciated.

>>1123597
Scrap yard, get some leaf springs.
Don't know about US, in europe it's like 10kg for 1$

>>1123603
I don't understand rubber will be too wobbly to be used

>>1123597
Or you could ask a waterjet cutting company to cut the blades out for you. Send them a dxf of the blade profile and ask for a price. Also use something like 6150 or 5160.

>>1123710
Then he still has to grind sharpen them lol effectively overpaying for flat bar

>>1123597
>a shit-ton of machetes as cheap as possible
assorted 5 pack for $15: https://www.majorsurplus.com/machete-madness.html

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rebar

>>1123603
Don't listen to this guy. Rubber is terrible at holding an edge.

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>>1123597
Junk yard for trucks. Harvest the leaf springs for amazing steel in flat wide and long pieces.

Scrap wood can be sources from 100s of places. You can even use epoxy to make composite handles using tons of stuff from sawdust to old clothing (google "micarta")

>>1123620
1060 & 1075 carbon steels are pretty tough, the spring steels 5160 & 9260 also make good machetes

>>1123597
You wouldn't happen to be a Hutu, are you?

>>1123633
Where do you live? Id like to buy all you can source for that price.

>>1123749
Rebar can't usually be hardened.

>>1123620
Non alloy Carbon steel with around .50% Carbon, but not less.
Like 1050, 1055, 1060, or in Europe sometimes C50, C55, C60 etc.

I'm basing this recommendation on the idea that you intend to make a traditional machete from about 2mm thick stock.

Not a 5mm thick sharpened prybar.

>>1123846
2mm is a bit light for some of the larger machetes, given the users tend to do some fairly rentally metarded shit with them to chop up tree trunks, try to throw them at things, make firewood, dig holes and other general fuckery.
3mm would be ok for stuff around the 40cm 'big fucken knife' mark and 4mm for something very substantial around 50-60cm long

Course, 2mm will work great for slicing vegetation and arm fatigue, but it might not last very long on contact with the village idiot that sharpens it with a river rock and breaks it by trying to cut down a forest of pine trees with it... then its all your fault it broke! ;)

CAR LEAF SPRINGS (BEST FOR MACHETE)Mercedes uses 5160 for suspension springs

I love machetes and have used many over the years for usability and resharpening ability i have not found any better than Ontario knife 18" full tang 1095 carbon steel 23.25" long with a blade thickness of .125".Ontario has been manufacturing the 1-18 Machete under U.S. Government Specs for over 60 years its only $22.99
it will require sharpening your self and grinding down the handle to be flush and smooth with the tang but will give years of good service. way less work than making from scratch. i will never buy a stainless or saw back or fancy expensive as the size weight and performance cant be beat imho

>>1123859
I have the Cold Steel Bowie and Bolo and the Ontario D handle one. All three around 12" and 3mm thick. The Ontario is the best of all three.

They are terrible for vegetation and only suitable for heavier work. The balance is no good either. They act more like big poorly ground knives than machetes.
None of them are bendable, even though 3mm may seem thin.

I also have a bunch of traditional machetes less than 2mm thick and up to 24" long.

The steel is softer and more springy.
I've never broken one and I've cut down numerous olive trees with them just for fun.
Never tried batoning.

My point is even the thinner machetes are extremely tough, and they work the best if you actually want a machete. You shouldn't be afraid of breaking one.

>>1123845
some rebar is made from hardened steel

>>1123879
Generally when I make a knife, its slightly over engineered to survive whatever the dumbest SOB can throw at it and a bit more. Larger knives also tend to need to survive a far bit of torsion and if someone said they wanted a machete, I'd usually use a 3-4mm because that is unlikely to ever fail even under extreme duress. Edge profile is something which the common, mass-manufactured machete has ever been good at, most have an axe-grind only a cm or 2 deep so that they're unlikely to chip or rollover when striking hard timber and to be expedient in how they're manufactured. But it'll never be really very sharp.

If you want a sharp, custom made machete us poor old fucking bladesmiths can do a lot more with a lump of steel.
>Knock a lot of weight out of the blade with a fuller
>Move the point of balance towards the grip
>Differential hardening on the edge so the rest is flexible
>Sabre or a high convex grind the edge profile so its got plenty of edge strength
>Make it out of a genuine, high grade tool steel with superior wear resistance and toughness

Course, no one really wants to spend that kind of money... even at 'charity rates' it'll cost upwards of $700+, but I guarantee you can kill a whole clan of evil ninjas and go full Paul Bunyan on trees with that motherfucker! :)
So they settle for a 10-30 buck beater made of chinesium they can use as a weed whacker/handheld african warcrime and get what they pay for.

>>1123620
CPM-3V™
CPM-S7™

>>1123633
This op.

Seemingly all blacksmithibg forums recomend new and known steel cause heat treats are different.

But if you absolutely have to go cheap use leaf springs from scrap yard.

As far as the wood goes find some old pallets, fint a factory that uses wood, pay $50 for a pickup load, call the power conpany as they haul a lot off.

>>1123899
Don't knock the cheap $10 machetes. They are perfectly fit for purpose.
With a bit of file work you can bring the shoulders down for a sharper edge.
The softer steel can handle it surprisingly well.

That said, a 1/4" thick flat ground machete would be pretty insane.

I have $20 bolo from the Philippines forged out of a leaf spring.
The blade tapers at both sides from full thickness leaf spring at the base of the blade, to opinel thin for 3" area at the tip.
Kind of like the cutting competition knives.
Its well bananced and a great cutter.

Choose sheet after getting multiple quotes and call a laser cutting company. Sheet drop ships there and they can use nesting software to get the most out of a sheet. That's common practice at machine and fab shops. Laser is getting so cheap that it's becoming a go-to method for heavier plate.

Unless you are in the third world, making a machete should be for fun. Otherwise it's like weaving your own asswipe. You can if there's no wiser use of your time.

>>1123722
Depends. If you want a serial production then with this method you can end up with very consistent results. I'm making swords for a living and having the blank cut out helps a lot. The time of profiling every blade would cost me more than outsourcing the job to a company.

>>1123937
1/4" is pretty fucking massive at 6-6.5mm thick, its more of a lump than anything!

Your Flip bolo was probably made by a full time bladesmith, unlike most of the western countries (+ Korea and Japan) they've had a cottage industry in metal workers going back hundreds of years and essentially uninterrupted up until the modern day. Industrial revolution sent most of them to the wall here about 100-120 years ago, few meandered along as farriers but most ended up in mechanised factories for metalwork production.

>>1123704
Vulcanised rubber. Google it.

Nepalese kukri's made by traditional blacksmiths are made out of leaf springs worked over a very small fire using a stone for an anvil for the most part.

They used to prefer Jeep leaf's but now they like Mercedes.

If it works for them and all that. Particularly given that a machete and kukri perform very similar tasks.

>>1123955
I have an Georgian kukri dating to around 1750 that's over half an inch thick at the spine between handle and bend, tapering down to a fine point. It's a working piece rather than a ceremonial piece and must have belonged to a beast of a man. It handles like a sledgehammer and weighs several lbs.

The belly at its widest point is about 3" and the lower blade a little less than 2" with three shallow fullers running almost the total length of the 28' blade (from handle to point in a straight line, not following the curve) to reduce weight and increase rigidity.

I also have others from the same period that are even longer, and with richly devorated sheaths which were ceremonial rather than practical. The largest is almost 40' total blade length and gold inlay along the length, but they're less than 10mm at the spine.

No idea what they used for stock back then, but it's high quality steel. The more recently acquired standard size kukri's I've purchased from small traditional blacksmiths in Nepal are excellent as woodsmans tools though, and they're definitely leaf spring scrap steel.

>>1123979

To clarify.

Got my ' and " mixed up on the total lengths.

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>>1123791
oh, you

>>1123597
> where would they find suitable scrap steel and scrap lumber?

they wouldnt.

because scrap metal is, guess what? Scrap.

are you getting 1080? 4130? 440C? 1018 mild?

you dont know.

what you do is you buy stock you know the composition of and can heat-treat accordingly, unless you're a fucking idiot.

Even machete makers in the goddamn congo know this.

>>1123974
The Mercedes they're talking about are Indian Mercedes, not German ones.
They're probably no different than any other spring.
So don't go around thinking the only good springs are from some mythical Unimog.

>>1123979
28" is basically 'a sword' in most cultures :)
Hard to say exactly where the steel would come from in that period, Nepal has some iron ore as well as Tibet they where quite close to as well which had access to some fairly good metallurgy history. But most likely India which produced large amounts of metals and that whole indo-persian trade thing which was some of the best steel in the world for a very long time.

>>1123898
Over here you might distinguish between hardenable and non-hardenable by looking at the lines on the rebar. Diagonal - > probably not hardenable, straight - > might be hardenable.

And for the record, I did say usually.

>>1123898
can you anneal it and then harden it?

>>1124157

>Machete makers in the Congo

Because those are large operations that have competitors locally and internationally

We in the West Indies get machetes from Brazil, England and guyana and while the south American ones have the British ones beat on price the British ones are the most popular as they are far superior. Funny how a country where machetes are illegal they make the best.

A guy who just needs a sharp piece of steel can use anything he can get a hold of and get by

Fucking lawn mower blades and shit

>>1126062
>Funny how a country where machetes are illegal they make the best.

Even funnier is that fact you know absolutely fuck all about what you're talking about.

Because I'm a bladesmith in the UK, and I can tell you it is not even remotely illegal to own them, despite whatever idiotic nonsense you've heard.

illegal to walk down the street carrying one? yes. but that applies to most countries, too.

>>1123608
Both, easier to use when your hands are sweaty and it doesn't dig into your hands.
>>1123615
Mmm I've only gotten blisters with plastic handles
>>1123791
Lel

>>1123979
Pics or it didn't happen

>>1123791
my rubber edc knife holds an edge really well, hardly ever have to sharpen it and I use it every day. Stop using low quality chinky rubber.

>>1126077
In most countries common sense and context is used. A machete is always a tool unless it is employed as a weapon.

In the UK its always a weapon. If you get "caught" carrying one for whatever reason you will receive a penalty.

>>1123899
>$700+
>unwarranted self importance detected

If you want to inflate your prices out the ass, it could be $400, but that's a $150 job. Cost of material being negligible.

>>1123972
Vulcanized rubber can still be soft as shit, dumbass. What you're intending to convey, but too stupid to grasp, is shore hardness.

>>1126698
Find me a similar "machete" for $150.

Even factory made ones cost much more than that.

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Check out your local golf course. See if they have any old bed knives. Good tool steel. Greens mower blades are thinner and just need a good grind with an angle grinder. Fairway blades are generally a little thicker and require little blacksmithing to bend the edge back flat.

>>1126787
We usually make quite a few up at a time. Quick and easy take maybe five minutes per knife to shape and grind. 1 inch rubber hose for a handle. We don't invest too much in them so its not big of a deal when a summer hand loses one.

>>1126772
You obviously know I'm not going to find one for that price, let alone anything that comes close to your description.
It's a fucking machete, and any Smith able to make them would be better off making swords for swordfags at equally outlandish prices. Smithing is a hobby, and just because something sells for a high price doesn't mean it's worth it or required half as much effort as the price suggests.

Machetes are a niche market, and anyone who's actually going to use one will do just fine with a sub-hundred dollar machete.
Swordfags are the only frothing-at-the-mouth idiots that would spend that much on some one-off item, and they wouldn't buy an overengineered machete over some anime inspired fantasy weapon.

>>1126045
The problem is that cast iron has far too much carbon to be hardened. Annealing is the process of un-hardening a metal by breaking the crystal structure and reforming it to be more malleable and less hard. I think.