This is my new John Nowill Sheffield treebeater I have just taken delivery of after someone relieved me of my last one. I have always carried a machette on my bergen after trying to clear tree branches from the trackplan of a harbour area using an entrenching tool. One of the other guys had a machette and just breezed through the job.
My last blade was a Brasilian Tramontina one and it was big but quite light for its size. The first thing I noticed about this one is its weight. it weighs in at 580g and certainly feels like a solid slab of metal.
The blade is 400mm long and 5mm thick. Unlike other blades I have seen it does not have a riveted handle, instead it has a non-slip rubber grip with a hand-guard. Normally I have ended up whipping and taping handles to give a decent grip and to make it easier on the hand for prolonged use. The ergonomics of this handle are great. It sits very comfortably in the hand, the grip feels nice and strong and there do not appear to be any abrasion points which would cause blisters. The other feature I particularly like about this tool is the way the handle is offset from the main cutting edge so that you can get a better swing in tight conditions without doing any damage to your knuckles. Finally the blade has a blackened finish. I am a fan of this as on previous machettes I have had to keep on top of oiling the blade, especially when its been stored for a while, to prevent rusting. This one has a very robust plastic type coating which will do well protecting it. Although this is marketed as an MOD issue item I have never seen one of this type, only the older Golok style machette.
