Who else uses a scythe?

[FortyTwoBlades]

Nope not mine--just grabbed it off the 'net where it's listed. Apparently it's actually marked on the machine as a scythe sharpener.

 

[Square_peg]

Like THIS heinous contraption!

That's cool as hell.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Perhaps, but it sure as hell wouldn't be going near any of my blades!

 

[garry3]

Perhaps, but it sure as hell wouldn't be going near any of my blades!

I would bet that if it was used as intended it would do a very good job. Guess I have never seen a sythe sharpener. Looks a lot like those used for sickle bars though. Not uncommon. I will start paying more attention to them.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

I think it was more for grinding out damage and resetting the edge than for actual sharpening per se. For that sort of work I've got my 1x42 belt sander and sharpening belts. They'll put a mirror polished edge on 'em so I have no use for such a machine other than as a collectible. I'm sure it worked well in its day--I've just got better tools at my disposal. Field sharpening obviously would have been provided with a hand-held oval stone or an emery "strickle".

 

[garry3]

I think it was more for grinding out damage and resetting the edge than for actual sharpening per se. For that sort of work I've got my 1x42 belt sander and sharpening belts. They'll put a mirror polished edge on 'em so I have no use for such a machine other than as a collectible. I'm sure it worked well in its day--I've just got better tools at my disposal. Field sharpening obviously would have been provided with a hand-held oval stone or an emery "strickle".

Ya, no doubt you could do better with what we have today. It sounds like you have a real nice set up. I think a machine like this wasn't for a man and his scythe, rather for doing many scythes. It is very similiar to a sickel bar sharpener. More of them in use today than scythe's for sure. With alot of tools such as axes, shovels and such, a file serves many people well enough. I bet not you though. Or me either.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

I like to keep my scythe blades as sharp as feasibly possible. Nothing like running them over a power-strop before hanging!

 

[Square_peg]

Field sharpening obviously would have been provided with a hand-held oval stone or an emery "strickle".

Real men carry a cast iron scythe sharpening machine on their belt in the field.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Heck yes. And a tin washtub on their belt to keep the stone wet!

 

[Square_peg]

That's what we always did.

We're simple folk. Just gimme plain white bread - with a tall glass of water just for dippin'!

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Snapped some pics today of my latest hauls.

First, some better shots of that resent odd old snath. As mentioned prior I suspect this to be an OLD Derby & Ball based on the shape of the collar on it, but the swing plate is not as developed a design as the double-eyed variety seen on later examples. It is, however, exceptionally secure providing that the end of the tang fits within the "wings" of the tang hole.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

The new Derby & Ball snath that I picked up yesterday. I suspect this one to be of very late manufacture, as it has not merely the folded/welded collar construction, but press-formed (rather cast) nib blocks with rather nasty shark-teeth on it that bite into the snath when tightened. This was clearly a cost saving measure. Also the forming and welding job on the nibs is of lower quality, the nibs are not as shaped, and the upper nib actually had a large knot in the wood. The neck of the snath shows signs of slight delamination which I suspect to be from the steam bending process rather than damage from use. The collar is also rather sloppily, though securely, mated to the snath. All that said and done, it's still a nicely bent snath and will work very well as a "loaner" example. To prevent further damage to the snath from the barbaric shark-tooth nib blocks I'll double up some bike innertube to slip onto the snath.

The blade on it was a very nice Emerson & Stevens bush blade of about the same size and style as my other by them, but about 2/3 the thickness. A very well made blade!

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Here is the batch of 5 short TrueTemper Briar Edge blades I scored as well. Lots of variation with these, with the top and bottom one being obviously the best made examples. They all appear to be in unused condition--just with different degrees of quality/consistency of forging. They seem to be about as hard as my longer TrueTemper blade, which is to say that they're quite hard! They're a very interesting size and style in that they're width would seem to cause them to fall under "bush blade" classification stylistically, they their thinner nature pushes them back into "weed blade" territory. Their length is neither here nor there, being on the short side for a weed blade and the long side for a bush blade. Thus they strike me as almost something of a categorical hybrid, and G-Pig and I have dubbed the term "mulch blade" for these. They'll need a little scrubbing, but they'll make wonderful users and beginners should have an easy time with them.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Lastly, here are the printing blocks I picked up that were used for the 1931 Logan Gregg Hardware catalog. These sort of things don't come up for sale that often and they're absolutely gorgeous!

Blizzard Hay Knife:

Little Giant (made by North Wayne Tool) grass/weed blade:

Clipper Grain Blade:

Finally, the real jewel of the bunch--a closeup cut of the business end of a Sta-Tite Back Saver snath:

 

[Steve Tall]

Fukuoka sort of pioneered the no till in way of growing grain. There hasn't been much headway in no till grain growing in cold climates though, Bonfils method being the only one comes to mind.

I like Ruth Stout's mulch approach a lot too. Compost adds extra work for what amounts to the same thing I suppose, in way of adding organic matter to the soil. A lot of hippy gardeners around here put far too much work into their compost it seems like. My brother way over grew vegetables last year so just starting mixing them back in with the mulch. eventually they reach the moisture, decompose etc. Take note that the Podoll garden in the video had no perceivable deficiencies and a ridiculous organic matter content. Thats important to note, for us the first year of no till certain things didn't take well to the soil as it was-- apparently copious mulching remedies that over time. The problem with the no till is balancing it with quicker results. I do think that can be done too, but it turns more still to mulch addition. My vision of the scythe is being integral to small/medium scale no till/mulch based gardening...

Bringing this post over to the scythe thread.

A related blog post titled "The One-Straw Revolution, and the Scythe-Based Farm":
http://onescytherevolution.com/1/post/2013/01/january-14th-2013.html

 

[G-pig]

Bringing this post over to the scythe thread.

A related blog post titled "The One-Straw Revolution, and the Scythe-Based Farm":
http://onescytherevolution.com/1/post/2013/01/january-14th-2013.html

I can't remember where we heard this, but we tried to mulch till its knee deep when it was freshly spread (without settling). That's a hell of a lot more than I've seen anyone else use for weed control etc. We couldn't afford to buy that much hay, or cut it all ourselves because we didn't have enough land, so we ended up bringing in maybe 50 or 60 paper bags full of leaves people had raked, and then put a mat of hay over that to keep them from roaming away on us. This was just spread on top of the soil with sod intact last fall. We did a large garden bed this way the year before and it worked great. I will have to try to get some pictures come spring. The difference between corn growing in soil with the sod cut away with a grub hoe and corn grown with the sod broken with mulch and mixed in was very huge.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

The soil at my place is ripe for hugelculture, it seems, so I'll be giving that a try this year. The scythe is going to come in handy for providing green mulch!

 

[G-pig]

Hugulkulture is getting a lot of love lately, and probably for good reason. We call ours an "upside down hugul" bed. Instead of burying the organic mass, we put it on top )). A lot of people have to go through that sort of activity detox though, having grown up thinking of a garden as all input and output and doing stuff, and hugul is great for getting those people to do something good rather the till the day lights out of the soil and spray and add stuff etc. I haven't looked into it enough to say, but 42 and I were talking about hugul as a fast track to raise organic matter content of soil to improve drainage etc.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Yeah. Hardpan clay is great for mineral content but it's absolutely balls for drainage. You could do pottery with my soil. Fortunately between horses, chickens, and rabbits I have plenty of manure, and I have enough vegetation that requires frequent mowing to provide the "greens".

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Just got in that "Book of Country Things" and it has just the info I was looking for.

The only kind of snath--scythe handle--that you can get now is ash, bent around jigs in a factory. Gramp always used a steam-bent black-cherry snath, and I wish I could get one now. They used to bend them by hand somewhere upcountry, Danby, I think. The cherry was bent so that when you took hold of the nibs you just naturally held your arms up, and the scythe went around to position of its own accord. The ash is harder to bend than cherry, and I never seen an ash snath yet that was really bent to suit me. And then, the cherry was lighter, and had more life to it; it was more springy. The ash has a kind of a dead feeling; there's no give to it.
I don't know why they give up making cherry snaths, unless because the was selected stuff and hard to get in quantity.

So it looks as though even though cherry isn't technically as strong as ash it was lighter and easier to give a strong bend to.