Who else uses a scythe?

Some short video clips, below, show three different approaches for harvesting wheat in Nepal.

A current method of harvesting wheat:

[video=youtube_share;06edzfeznHM]http://youtu.be/06edzfeznHM[/video]

Demonstration of using a scythe for harvesting wheat in Nepal:

[video=youtube_share;fMxSCDp-f9I]http://youtu.be/fMxSCDp-f9I[/video]

Shown below is what the agriculture agencies are promoting (instead of scythes):

[video=youtube_share;sjasNdqqaBY]http://youtu.be/sjasNdqqaBY[/video]

Motorized harvester:
- fossil fuel dependent, fuel must be imported
- higher cost, shorter life
- weight 8 - 15 kg
- noisy, with exhaust fumes
- all equipment and spare parts must be imported

Scythe:
- fossil fuel independent
- low cost, long life
- weight 2 - 3 kg
- no noise, no exhaust
- all needed equipment can be fabricated locally
 
Steve Tall said:
Motorized harvester:
- fossil fuel dependent, fuel must be imported
- higher cost, shorter life
- weight 8 - 15 kg
- noisy, with exhaust fumes
- all equipment and spare parts must be imported

Scythe:
- fossil fuel independent
- low cost, long life
- weight 2 - 3 kg
- no noise, no exhaust
- all needed equipment can be fabricated locally
Click to expand...


Two-stroke engines are the filthiest least efficient gas engines. But that aside, the scythe was doing a better job.
 
When I read about scythe cradles I visualized them as, well, cradle-like. Horizontal frameworks. The scythe cut. The hay fell onto the cradle. The harvester somehow flipped the plants onto the windrow. Small wonder it took a strong man to use the cradle-scythe. In the light of my own ignorance, it all made sense.

Another beautiful theory murdered by a brutal gang of facts. :D

The upright cradle in the video looks a lot more efficient.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
This one
Click to expand...

He takes a full heat in a huge fire, the length of the blade, quenches in oil, then laterally runs all the colors off the blade over a small fire, back to gunmetal while blowing through a pipe to stop the process. He points to a secondary faint set of colors while he's cooling w/ the pipe. Wish I could understand what he's saying. I'd also like to know what steel he started with. The old cat definitely knows what he's doing, that's a heck of a blade. And he's proud of it to. Puts his mark on it in big letters where it will stay for a long time.
 
OK, so here's what's going on. He's looking for a specific temper color indicating ~570°F. That's about the hardness of a wood saw.

Recall that European style scythe blades are kept soft enough to peen in the sharpening process, as opposed to American scythe blades which were traditionally knife-hard. Check out this temper color chart.

Temper%20colors%20BkYd%20BlkSmt.jpg


He was getting it up to dark blue. The blow tube was to control the temperature at the edge. The edge is very thin and heats up much quicker than the back of the blade. He's being very careful not to let the colors run too fast on that thin edge.

Keep in mind that forging temperature for carbon steel is up around 1800°F. Annealing temperature would be around 1500°. He's not getting anywhere near that in his tempering process.

Here's a use chart for different tempering colors for reference.

Color%20charts.jpg
 
Looked to me like he was getting it closer to what the bottom right chart calls cornflower blue--sort of a rich blue-grey. Thanks for posting those!
 
Thanks for the explanation, Pegs. Has anyone ever seen a mouth tube used during the tempering of a blade, other than in this video?
 
I haven't either. I've personally used a tube (an aluminum arrow shaft, actually) to act as a mouth-operated bellows to get a roaring fire going, but never seen one used with a manual heat treatment process.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
Chances are strong that the Euro blade that you saw was a
Redtenbacher, as they're the most commonly seen Euro blades here. The
tang usually has a couple of swans and reads "Acier Fondu". Other
makers did export here, though.
Click to expand...

I think it did have swans on it. Today I saw another odd blade. This
one was the first American style that I have seen with the tang set!
But there was more. It was stamped something like 'J Waldmore
England.' It was very long, came to a point a bit like a European
blade, had a thin wide web with an imperceptible bevel, and had a chip
out of it, the size of a quarter, broken out like an old window
pane. In addition to, The blade was also tilted relative to the spine,
like the flap on an airplane wing- I think this is what is meant by a
crown blade? I could not get a close look at the
tang because the blade was secured by a pair of rings and the strangest
connecting system- two very crude bars of metal with holes through
them. The final odd thing about this, on the snath half way
between the blade and the lower nib, were the remnants of a pair of
leather strap loops nailed to the wood.

I did not buy that one, but for $16.00, I got a Seymour #30 grass
blade on back saver hardware. They are rusted, but not badly. The
snath is in bad shape though. The nibs are cracked and hopeless. The
snath is white and black and deeply ridged, but not cracked or
crumbling. I would either move the nibs from my seymoure #1 grass
snath to this after a good soak in mineral oil or move the back saver
hardware to the Seymour #1 snath.
Pictures:
backsaver.jpg

DSCN2880.JPG

DSCN2881.JPG
 
Oh man. That snath is toast. No use in restoring that one. It would be possible to exchange the hardware with your SN-1 but it would take a lot of work. The loop bolt on the Back Saver passes through the wood, which is carved out to accommodate it while the SN-1 uses a loop bolt that hangs off the end of the wood rather than going through it. This means that using the Back Saver hardware would move the point of attachment about an inch and a half back on the snath. The holes also wouldn't line up right, I don't believe. The hardware is worth saving but the collar I'd only recommend using to replace a damaged collar on another Back Saver that uses the same style. The nib blocks will come in handy if you decide to purchase replacement nibs (swap the iron blocks out for the aluminum ones that come on the current Seymour nibs) or you could try your hand at making your own replacement grips for the hardware.

The blade you saw was an English blade by Waldron. Not quite sure what you mean by the airplane wing analogy, but a crowned blade is on that, when viewed with the edge facing you and the tang on the right, will gradually curve upward as you approach the tip, with a typical rise of about an inch and a quarter on a 30" grass blade. The leather straps sound very curious. From what I can tell of the attachment method you were describing it sounds like a double ring and wedge method, which was common on bush snaths.
 
Nice! The No.1 snath historically tends to be thick in the neck and vary in how true to round they are--some are great and others are all wonky, with most being in between. I think it's because they would minimize rejection rate by spot-sanding delamination marks post-bending. I've heard that actual breakage rate during bending is about 40% which is actually well within control limits for what was once the snath industry, which ranged anywhere between as low as 25% to as high as a whopping 75%. Split ash is used because it eliminates failures that result from runout. The nibs will likely need some minor tuning and the collar may need some shimming.

Briar Edge blades are common and often rough in their forging, but good hard steel and overall good form to them--they just tend to vary a lot in form within the same model. I know--I have something like 25 bush blades from the series.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
Oh man. That snath is toast. No use in restoring that one. … The nib blocks will come in handy if you decide to purchase replacement nibs (swap the iron blocks out for the aluminum ones that come on the current Seymour nibs) .

The blade you saw was an English blade by Waldron. Not quite sure what you mean by the airplane wing analogy, but a crowned blade is on that, when viewed with the edge facing you and the tang on the right, will gradually curve upward as you approach the tip, with a typical rise of about an inch and a quarter on a 30" grass blade. .
Click to expand...

Thanks! Now the world can see what a toast snath looks like. The collar looks just like the one on my Derby and Ball snath, down to the lip behind
where the tang sits. The rivit hole falls behind where the rotating adjustment attaches on the flat area. The back of the back saver hardware would ride up on the carved portion though. Pictures:
rivit.jpg

tops.jpg

Big problem, the shape is just a little different, with the D and B being slightly wider at the blade face.

On another note, I labored over the rust on the Seymour 30 grass blade and started to put the edge back on
when something very interesting appeared: nested serration patterns on the top face! The back bevel is smooth
and seemed to be lined up with the rib. Note the scale. At the finest scale, there are parallel scratches. At the next scale, they undulate in cycles of 4. One level up, they undulate in cycles of 22?? Fractal sharpened blade?
fineserate.jpg

bigserate.jpg

backserate.jpg
 
Those are just marks from the contacted Austrian manufacturer's factory edge preparation. Normal for those blades, but not for blades produced in the USA or Sweden. :)
 
That is just fascinating. I checked my other Seymour 'Austria' blade and that too had these markings, but only on the heal. On all of my blades
the heal is much sharper, maybe preserving a trace of the standard that the old farmers were able to reach on the rest of the blade that I have
to struggle to reach. I wonder what the stories of these blades might be. It seems they are essentially new old stock. I can imagine the old folks
after the harvest, feeling too worn out to fight with the old blade on the grindstone yet again and flush with cash after the harvest giving in and
getting a new blade from town. And like guys who retire or lose a spouse, not making it to the next harvest.
Here is a page from the 1897 Sears Catalogue that gives a nice sense of the relative prices of things:
http://books.google.com/books?id=pavHOWOWKEEC&pg=PA64#v=onepage&q&f=false
Not that they seemed to call just the blade a scythe. Note also how much more expensive a lawn mower
was, and how much decoration and page space they got. 50c for a top end grass blade, 55c for a grass snath,
versus $2.35 for an entry level lawn mower, almost the same price as grain cradle.

In my struggle to get to and keep a sharp edge:
I was trying to use a cup to maintain my edges. A wind storm blew it over. Now I have this that perfectly and safely fits my thumb:
cup.jpg

It takes off metal, but I don't know if it is enough surface to be effective.
 
Last edited:
I have the snath to one of those Morgan cradles. It was a wooden support, though the cradle itself is missing. The "grapevine pattern" snath is highly unusual and must have been a challenging bend to do.

Using the commodity method to determine historical value in today's dollars and presuming skilled rather than unskilled labor, the Clipper Dutchman blade priced at $0.45 in 1891 would be $91.80 in today's dollars. Their grass snath would be $112.00 in today's dollars. The $2.25 grain cradle would be $459.00 today compared to the lawnmower at $480.

I picked up a few new old stock blades recently that are so minty fresh that they still have a large and feathery wire edge on them from the factory sharpening. Other than a few honing strokes they came pretty much ready to go.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top