From one of my Brit PD Twitter feeds:
I checked the label and it said “Tramontina” which is a brand of machetes from Brazil. It shows in a website as the Tramontina Bolo Machete at a grand total of $14 plus shipping.
This cheap Brazilian machete made it to the Great Britain through the customs controls it has established and still went through ended up in somebody’s hands who appears to had it lost and the cops found it.
I watch Forged on Fire and by now I am well than aware that decent quality blades can be forged with a car’s leaf spring. How many junkyards you figure there are in the British Isles?
The real Mad Max World is going to be held in England rather than Australia and be conquered by those who can smuggle of forge a blade.
50 years ago, as a boy scout, I lost my sheath knife. My father let me make a replacement, by cutting and grinding an old high speed steel saw blade from a large power metal saw. I still have it, it’s the toughest blade by far I’ve ever owned.
So yes, making a machete is easy, and depending on what you start from may require nothing more exotic than a bench grinder.