hollowdweller said:
So you all are using these sickles? I've thought about getting one. Do they sharpen up pretty good? Are they light enough to swing? Could somebody post a pic of one being held in the hand to help with the scale?
I'll do one better, HD...how about some vids?
It's the landlady's responsibility to maintain the lawn, not mine, but she doesn't have the eye for detail that I do. I noticed recently that she neglected to weedwhack underneath my room mate's boat. Unsatisfactory. I decided to handle it with the hasiya.
Hasiya Vid One
Note how I thunk the spine on the trailer towards the end.
It happens. I updated to SP2 this afternoon and all that that entails and my videos look like crap on Windows Media Player 10. It's not visible on my end but trust me, there was quite a bit of vegetation under there - you can kind of see it piling up on the camera's side of the trailer.
There's a little unpaved square that the roof drains into. It always seems to get missed. I suppose that I could've hosed it down with herbicide, leaving an ugly bare patch of dirt right in front of the house and getting a few more grams of chemicals into the salmon stream at the bottom of the hill...or, I could simply trim it down with the hasiya, keeping Strawberry Creek that much cleaner and leaving the patch green instead of brown.
Hasiya Vid Two
Again, I can't see all the details in the vid and you may or may not be able to, but you can see all stuff left laying around on the concrete after I'm done.
I was taking my time here, as the concrete is higher than the patch on some sides and I didn't want to make contact with it. Note that when the edge is good and sharp, all it takes is a flick of the wrist to cut light vegetation. The balance is understandably point heavy but the overall tool is light enough that there's still a lot of control. For those plants that have woody stems and/or are right next to a piece of concrete, the "hook" of the blade makes it very easy to get under it and remove it with an upwards cutting motion.
I haven't used mine on anything heavier than 1/2" green branches. I'm guessing it would make it through 1" or so if I swung from the shoulder but this seems like something that should be swung from the wrist, or maybe the elbow at most. I can't tell you the weight as my scale is accurate to the nearest ten pounds or so but it's certainly lighter than most khuks. Very easy to use and not tiring at all.
I haven't etched mine yet and I don't want to take a file to the edge so I can't tell you if it's differentially hardened or not. One time it held an edge great, another time it lost it quickly. The previous owner stated that they'd only used it once so I'm guessing that I haven't gotten down to the good steel yet.
I purchased mine used and can't comment on the factory edge but it had a perfectly acceptable utility edge on it when it arrived. I hit it with a 9 micron belt, power stropped, then hand stropped and it got scary. The edge seems a little thinner than most khuks. I don't recall if it was convexed or not when I got it but it's convexed now and I didn't grind anything but the very edge. (I hate marking up the finish with sanding marks.)
We've been fairly diligent with keeping the grass short at the Camp but I bet I can find some that's good and tall. When I do, I'll cut it down and try to document it. I have a feeling that tall grass will be much easier.
On a related note, does anyone know the proper way to use one of these? I'm kind of improvising here. It's one thing for your father to teach you how to use a splitting maul, but how many people (besides Tbarahon) are taught how to use a sickle?
