Machete to a Relief Specification

Machete blades are typically 30–66 cm long and under 3 mm thick. The Red Cross and Red Crescent emergency catalogue sets out what a sound one must be: a 55 cm machete with a 2.5 mm blade of hot-forged carbon steel, 0.6–0.65 % carbon and 0.6–0.8 % manganese, hardened and tempered to 45–50 Rockwell C near the edge, the whole blade hardened but the tang left normalised past the first rivet hole. The wooden handle is keyed into three grooves in the tang and held by three steel rivets with washers.