Woodsfolk appreciate a good machete, one that has the
right heft and size, good grip, and holds an edge. I found a machete at Harbor
Freight in Asheville NC that had good heft, size, and grip, and even came with a
sheath and backside saw teeth. I painted it orange so it wouldn’t get lost after
slipping out of my sweaty mitt and sailing off into the brush on a hot summer’s
day, and proceeded to use it.
I used it first on small brush, mostly less than an inch
thick, but after one good hour of weed-whacking its handle fell apart. Looking
closely, I found that the screws holding the handle to the blade were made of
soft plastic, and were themselves screwed into soft plastic. Of course they
couldn’t stand the shock typically given to machetes, which any competent
designer and manufacturer would know. Of course a seller of tools, in this case
Harbor Freight, would know that plastic screws would be incompetent.
Nonetheless, the manufacturer and Harbor Freight were evidently only concerned
with profit. To make the machete work, I had to drill out the handle and
replace the plastic screws with stainless steel screws, nuts, and washers.
This pic shows the replacement screws before grinding
them down to make them flush with the machete handle:
The second thing that went wrong with the machete was that
the backside saw teeth shredded the sheath so badly that it was very difficult
to remove the machete from the sheath. Obviously, the sheath is incompetently
designed for a sawback machete, and the nylon rubbing should have been a steel
rubbing:
Then last Saturday I used it on a 1.5-inch laurel oak and
the blade broke clean in half! Now what kind of steel would do that? Cheap
steel, that’s what kind. Clearly, the manufacturer supplies incompetent steel
and Harbor Freight has insufficient quality control or concern, or both. Check
out this blade:
How would you like for a blade tip like that to fly off your machete at high speed and stick you in the leg or a companion in the face? Well, that's exactly what could happen if you use a machete from Harbor Freight!
Who manufactured this machete? There are no identifying
marks on the blade, nor does the handle have an id either inside or out. This
is undoubtedly because the manufacturer does not want to be responsible for his
shoddy product. Because the vast majority of junk being sold at big boxes like
Harbor Freight seem to be from Communist China, I assume that is also where
this piece of junk originated. One wonders how many other incompetent products
made by this anonymous manufacturer are sold at quality-control-challenged Harbor
Freight. I challenge Harbor Freight to address this issue in a responsible
manner. In fact, I challenge also Wal-Mart, Lowe’s, and all other big boxes that
obtain shoddy merchandise from Communist China to get some quality control.
