Practical Blades

[mete]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/outdoors/7866103/Scythe-festival-Blades-of-glory.html

For those of you who don't have a scythe I can tell you that they really work well ! Of course the fellow who wrote the article should have learned about sharpening before he entered a contest. You can sharpen with a stone but also a hammer and anvil. He didn't mention that hammering not only thins the edge but hardens the steel !! The steels used are not high in carbon so they can be work hardened.

 

[C.S. Graves]

I've been trying to learn to use and maintain a scythe lately myself. Earlier this year I tried my hand at making a scythe snath out of a locally harvested sapling.

Admittedly, it's a bit of a trial and error process for me. Behold, the error!:

The tang snapped right through the snath during use in my backyard in some thick grass. Guess I didn't pick a robust enough sapling... didn't carve a proper fit for the tang, or let the wood season properly.

Also have a peening anvil set in a log to attempt the peening process... so far I've only tried it the once after doing some research online... and it's hard!

When I get the time, I'd like to try fixing that snath or making a new one and trying it all again though.

 

[Leftoverdj]

CS, seasoned hickory and steam the curve into it.

Better you than me. I had more than enough of scythes 50 years ago.

 

[singularity35]

maybe you can put a piece of plate steel with a hole that coincides with the slot for the tang and screw it down.

 

[C.S. Graves]

CS, seasoned hickory and steam the curve into it.

Yeah, it'd probably be the safest bet to pick up, say, a 2x2" piece of hickory or other suitable wood instead. A scythe guru from the area maintains that one can make an effective straight snath, provided the length and set of the handle are just right for the intended user.

Luckily I'm getting my ride-on mower repaired (eventually, tick tock! ) so I wouldn't have to rely on scythe-mowing.

maybe you can put a piece of plate steel with a hole that coincides with the slot for the tang and screw it down.

Yeah, this was suggested on another forum. I picked up a little something that I thought would be suitable, but the holes pre-drilled into it are a bit too small for the tang, and I lack the tools to cut one to the proper shape. However, I may instead offset the angle the plate is screwed in at to reinforce the spot where the snath broke.

I also could have benefitted from having a real tenon-cutter for the handle. In lieu of that, I had to hand-whittle it instead, and though it was initially a tight fit into the snath, it eventually started to rotate, even though I used epoxy in the mortise. A small square nail through the juncture oughta fix that though.

An alternative someone suggested for the NEXT snath, if I make one would be to fire-harden the area near the tang-hole. To be safe, I could find epoxy-soaked thread around the area as extra reinforcement.