A Traditional Blade That Sees Little Use Now

[update: after reading the thread : http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/884115-Who-else-uses-a-scythe I have little to add!]

Ironically, I'm in the market for a scythe.
Where I now live it's so dry we only get grass for a fews months in the spring so I can't justify buying a lawn mower to sit idle 50 weeks a year.

Those of you lucky enough to own one should look into adjusting it for your height, terrain and stroke (Austrian swing semicircular, tuning only at the waist. The Basque stroke is almost side to side with a lot of leg drive...
This site describes the considerations when setting up the blade:
http://www.scytheconnection.com/adp/docs/blade.html

re: blades
There seem to be two types: Old world (eg. Austrian) use softer steel that is easy to touch up in the field.
American use harder steel that will hold an edge longer but is more difficult to touch up by hand.
 
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blaisep said:
[update: after reading the thread : http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/884115-Who-else-uses-a-scythe I have little to add!]

Ironically, I'm in the market for a scythe.
Where I now live it's so dry we only get grass for a fews months in the spring so I can't justify buying a lawn mower to sit idle 50 weeks a year.

Those of you lucky enough to own one should look into adjusting it for your height, terrain and stroke (Austrian swing semicircular, tuning only at the waist. The Basque stroke is almost side to side with a lot of leg drive...
This site describes the considerations when setting up the blade:
http://www.scytheconnection.com/adp/docs/blade.html

re: blades
There seem to be two types: Old world (eg. Austrian) use softer steel that is easy to touch up in the field.
American use harder steel that will hold an edge longer but is more difficult to touch up by hand.
Click to expand...

To start off, let me preface this by saying I wouldn't class myself as an expert and these are just my own observations and findings from personal experimentation and research. :)

It's definitely of utmost importance for the user to adjust the scythe to their build and proportions or else your ergonomics will be out of whack. As a general guideline you usually want the lower nib or grip at the height of the ball socket of your hip and the upper one set one cubit (the length from your elbow to outstretched fingertip) higher. There are almost countless blade and snath varieties, with each scythe-using geographic region having their own preferred style. The American pattern has most in common with the English variety when it comes to the snath, but the blades are significantly different. If you ever want to see a truly bizarre snath check out Scottish ones!

With blade styles continental blades tend to be of the soft variety that take their rigidity from the tension of their dished form and the edges are work-hardened through peening while blades from England, Sweden, and North America tend to be harder and have their edge reset on a slow-moving water cooled grindstone. However, there were many soft examples as well (usually of lower quality though not always) that could have seen benefit from the peening method to improve their edge retention. Top-tier American blades were made from laminated "scythe rod" stock and had a hard core with softer outer layers, some of which went the extra length to use a medium spring steel for the spine region, hard for the edge core, and soft for either side of the edge. Even the hardest of American blades are no harder to maintain with a stone than a knife is. My hardest blades are by True Temper and are extremely hard, but nothing compared to a lot of modern pocket knives. A typical American blade is like an Imacasa machete in hardness with a hard one about as hard as an Ontario machete and the softer quality ones more akin to Cold Steel machetes. Junky ones are softer but if the form is good they can usually be bent back straight (they often are bent) and the edge peened to compensate.

However you can, indeed, generally class blade types as European or American if you wish to simplify discussion. It's just an inherently oversimplified dyad.

The specific stroke used with a scythe will depend on the individual blade and snath combination as well as adjustment. An American, I've found, will employ different strokes depending on the mowing conditions. In the lawncraft video you can see that I'm using a combination of both body and arm motion. Weedy conditions benefit more from a combination of arm and leg motion, while bush conditions are more likely to benefit from almost exclusively arm-generated strokes. Then with different blades, snaths, and hangs of the blade the stroke required will change subtly. The only real thing to do is learn the basic precepts and then listen to the tool carefully until you can deduce how it best wants to be used.
 
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I watched one of my grandfathers mow a back field with one often when I was about 5
years old, that was 55 years ago. I remember him sharpening it often and yeah it was
spooky sharp. Cool thing is I still have that scythe in excellent condition. Downside is
its right handed and I'm left.
Ken.
 
You might be surprised! I've heard from righties that have tried mowing with lefty units that have said that making the transition was fairly easy and they went right into their zen rhythm after only a few minutes. You may be able to make it work for ya'! Got any pictures? I'd love to tell you what I can about it!
 
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