>>1468205>hold an edge>is easy to sharpenYou have to pick one. a machete that holds an edge well needs to be hard, making it harder to sharpen. Most people pick a softer steel that will need to be resharpened more often but won't chip easily and can be sharpened with simple tools.
From what I hear, tramontina makes good machetes. They're also rather cheap. The best machetes I've seen so far however were all no name products made by some east european smiths.
As for cold steel, I'd stay away from those if I were you. while the steel and hardening are alright, the factory grind sucks big time. On my gladius "machete", the edge was 1.5mm (measured with caliper) wide in some areas. In other words, blunt enough to step on without getting cut. While it's possible to fix the grind, it requires a belt grinder or extremely good skills with an angle grinder.
The grips cold steel uses also aren't exactly the best. Not only are they designed for extremely large hands, they also absorb almost none of the shock and have way to much grip on it, causing blisters on prolonged use.
Cold Steels machetes are designed to be cheap weapons, and they are acceptable for that purpose. but for actual machete work, you should get one with a wood or leather handle.
>I have heard that if you dont get one that is weighted right, it will really suck to use.Depends on what you use it for. For cutting thicker branches and young trees, it doesn't matter as long as the center of gravity is forward of the handle as the wood slows down the machete enough.
For cutting thin branches, grass, vines and similiar, weight distribution matters as you need to be able to stop the machete easily at the end of the cut. As a general rule of thumb, the center of gravity should be two to three thumbs forward of the guard.
