A Traditional Blade That Sees Little Use Now

L

lambertiana

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Yesterday and today there was an estate sale across the street from me. Today I wandered over to take a look; not much interested me. But than I spotted something laying on the lawn, and had to take it home. For $5 I couldn't resist. It had a lot of surface rust, so I cleaned it up with oil and a brass bristle brush. Then some time with the belt sander brought the edge back nicely. When my wife saw it the first thing she said was that I could use it for a Halloween costume. I remember in the 1970s watching an old guy go down the road by my house in upstate NY with one of these, effortlessly cutting the tall grass along the road, stopping occasionally to touch it up with a stone. Ever since then I have wanted one.


 
That is quite a tool, and quite a find. Nice job on the touch-up. The curved handle is very interesting. Probably a lot more peaceful than firing up the weed eater too. I'd like to see that scythe in action. You must have a passion for the past... :thumbup:

Scythe_user.png

The belt carry is his hone used for sharpening.
 
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Very nice! I had one when I was much younger that I carried to a halloween party. Fun times. Like other things, I misplaced it or lost it in a move. I wish I had it again now that I am interested in things with edges....Thank you for sharing.
Nathan
 
That is a great find. My grandfather used to clear a good size piece of his property with a scythe and I remember watching him swing it rhythmically, like he had a tune in his head while he worked. There is a very good thread in the axes and tomahawk sub forum with tons of great info in it about scythes. Very much worth a look into...
Congrats,
Duane
 
I'm glad you posted this thread. I remember last year that I had a great urge to get a scythe and learn to use it. Just never quite pulled the trigger. I will hop over to the referenced thread and see what I can glean from there. I find that I am fascinated with old hand held, hand powered tools.

Ed J
 
Nice score Lambertiana, I have owned a few of those, and the curved handle is correct, good to see it has the handles as well, as they are often missing. The squared off blade at the end is a different variation, as usually the blades are what you see in Hals Drawing- and yet the chap has a straight handle in that diagram-where I don't thing that would work with the swing technique compared to the curved handle?

When you get out of hospital from attempting to take out your Achilles Tendons -we want photo's lol
 
Nice find. I have a couple of neighbours who use them regularly, fairly young guys too. I've used sickles, but never a scythe.
 
Campbellclanman said:
When you get out of hospital from attempting to take out your Achilles Tendons -we want photo's lol
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Ha ha! Though one would not want to go bare feet with one of these things.
However, this dude from your neck of the woods makes it look easy. I bet it takes some practice.
[youtube]njHsmhAEoq4[/youtube]

Quite an intriguing tool. Of course keeping a keen edge would be important. I looked up sharpening techniques and found this.
[youtube]j7Lz41Sxmnk[/youtube]
 
Mowing with a scythe is some kind of art, imo. Sharping a scythe is art, too.

I have several scythes around in my working shag, which is still there and the scythes in there were my great-grandpa´s. But I´m unable to use it, because I´m a lefty... I´d like to use them and tried several times, but the result was just... well... bad.
 
nice score!
I've used a scythe many years back to mow some rough pasture -- it's an interesting skill to learn.
 
It's good exercise, but it does take some skill.:eek:

Also, much more environmental, all manner of small harmless creatures (hedgehogs, frogs,snakes etc) get slaughtered by the noisy stinky petrol strimmer :thumbdn:

Just imagine in the old days, men and women gathering in the harvest or doing mowing for hay all with scythes, hour after hour, took some strength!
 
Well, a frog or snake in the grass would not fare well with a scythe either. But none the less, it is an art that looks to work very well once you can keep a blade sharp and get the rhythm.
 
That's a fascinating find, I'm not going to lie, I couldn't begin to use one effectively. Using a Scythe is nearly a lost art I suppose.
 
never used one but years ago i would sometimes work seasonally at an apple orchard. another seasonal worker would use a scythe to trim the grass beneath the trees in the 'u-pick-em' part of the orchard.
he said you had to practice to get the rhythm right and that you had to sharpen the blade pretty often during a work session. he liked to do that work in the evening after sunset because it wasnt as hot.
 
did you know the proper way to sharpen one of those is to hammer the edge until its razor sharp? quite intriguing and takes some technique to master
 
We had one when I was a kid, Dad called it a character builder........it was! It proved just how clumsy you really were and yes Andi, being left handed did not help one bit. It weren't pretty.


Have a great day,
Jeff
 
thawk said:
Well, a frog or snake in the grass would not fare well with a scythe either. But none the less, it is an art that looks to work very well once you can keep a blade sharp and get the rhythm.
Click to expand...

I love the sound of the Blade "chinging" as he takes his backward swing!.... good steel, good to see its a NZ video, thanks for putting that up Hal.
Lambertiana, time for your video my friend.
 
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