Who else uses a scythe?

Aren't they though? :D They're available now, for those wanting to land one. I'm blown away still by how closely they resemble originals.
 
Bumpity bump bump... :)

That F. Dick steel I got from you is just amazing. I love it!
I worked in the broomstraw and briers for about two hours this afternoon, pulled up a blister at the base of my pinky on my left hand. It was 70° here , I was in a t shirt and no gloves. Can't wait 'til the new growth starts coming on, things are starting to green up around here.

You doing all right with all that snow we've been sending you? :p I think we've got a couple more of those laying around here...
 
Smooth that nib up and span the space between the nib and the snath when gripping it. The middle finger lies on the underside of the nib almost straight up and down, almost like trying to touch the nib block with your fingertip. :)

Doesn't that steel work awful slick? :D We had a mini heat wave this weekend, but it was a high in the mid 40's. Good enough for the hose to the water trough to thaw. About time, too. I was running out of places to put the snow.
 
I picked up an Isaiah Blood Scythe for $10 at a store where someone had painted it John Deere green for decoration purposes, I collect Blood Axes so I was pretty excited to find a scythe as well. My father gave me a scythe from the farm that we do not use anymore, the name has been rubbed away some where someone stuck a nail down in it to get it tighter but from what I can make out it reads:

DS Worth & Sons
Burns, N.Y. U.S.

I have had 0 luck finding anything at all out about it, it is only maybe two feet long. Any idea on this piece?
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
Sounds like a David Wasworth & Sons blade, of Auburn, NY. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks, that makes alot more sense than what I was trying to guess at. Know much about them? Also here is a photo of the two scythes, Blood up top and Wadsworth on bottom
20140226_205939_zps63b9c1e9.jpg
 
The one on the top is a square-heeled grain cradle blade of very nice form. The bottom is a Dutch pattern weed blade. :)

The company that was to become David Wadsworth & Sons was started in 1818 by Joseph Wadsworth and moved into the Auburn facility in 1829. The company was passed to David Wadsworth senior in 1845. In 1876 his son, David Wadsworth Jr., was made a partner in the business. D. Wadsworth Sr. passed away in 1905. D. Wadsworth Jr. had three sons, including D. Wadsworth the Third. I presume it was at this point that the "s" was added to the end of the company name, as from what I can tell D. Wadsworth the Second was an only child, or at the very least the only son.

They're also one of the few companies that put double beads on their blades with notable frequency.
 
H. Beam Piper wrote an alternate universe story, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. Pennsylvania State Policeman Calvin Morrison is dumped into an alternate Pennsylvania. One occupied by Caucasians speaking Aryan based languages. The technology is roughly sixteenth century.

The kingdom he settles in is at war, and Lord Kalvan lends a hand. When peasants show up for a battle, many of them have pole arms. Scythes with the tangs straightened, and fixed on a long stick.

When Kalvan is planning one battle he wants: “Eight hundred pikemen, with pikes and not hunting-spears or those scythe-blade things, and eight hundred arquebusiers, with arquebuses and not rabbit-guns.” Kalvan never figured out what to call them, except “those scythe-blade things.”

Piper knew about old weapons. His first book was a mystery called Murder in the Gun Room. It’s fascinating stuff to those who care about the difference between a snaphaunce and a flintlock. (It was his first and last mystery novel.)

If Piper thought scythes were turned into pole arms, he probably wasn’t blowing smoke. It makes sense. I wouldn't want to be chopped by one. Talk about a Grim Reaper! But I never researched Battlefield Scythe-Blade Things.

Until now, by chance. Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kościuszko helped Washington win the revolutionary war. He chose and fortified the spot where Gates won the Battle of Saratoga and Burgoyne surrendered. And that’s just one incident.

Later Kościuszko unsuccessfully defended his native Poland against conquest and partition. He’s better known in Poland than America. Here’s a section of Matejko's Battle of Racławice. It’s usually called Kościuszko and the Peasant Scythe Men.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kosciuszko_pod_Raclawicami.jpg

Score one for H. Beam Piper.
 
I've seen "those scythe things" referred to as "war scythes" by historians but haven't been able to fully ascertain if that was a term used historically or just one invented in modern times to suitably describe the "off-label" adaptation and use of the tool.
 
Going through my copy of Stones Glossary I found no entry for "war scythe". The entry for "scythe" is as follows:



(the rest of the entry from the next page) ....an improvised weapon by peasants as late as the end of the 18th century.
 
Yeah--they were sort of the opposite of the whole "swords to plowshares" thing. :D
 
Forget trying to hit a man with a plow--try actually being hit by one! I think I'll pass--don't know about you! :D :D :D
 
Here’s look at swords and scythes from another perspective.

It comes from Maria Molnar’s Love with Paprika. Molnar’s memoir describes the time she spent in Hungary on an old fashioned feudal estate. The visit happened sometime in the 1930s. This is part of her description of harvest time:

THEY CALLED THE SCYTHE "THE MOST HONEST SWORD," BECAUSE IT EARNED IN THREE WEEKS BREAD FOR AN ENTIRE WINTER. A PEASANT CHOOSING HIS SCYTHE WAS LIKE A VIOLINIST SELECTING HIS FIDDLE. FIRST HE WOULD TEST THE BLADE FOR SHARPNESS; THEN HOLDING THE PRECIOUS INSTRUMENT HIGH BY THE LONG SNATH, HE WOULD RING IT WITH THE "CLINKING STONE" AND LISTEN CAREFULLY TO THE TIMBRE.

FOLLOWING THE MEN WITH THE SCYTHES THROUGH THE FIELDS CAME THE GIRLS WITH SICKLES TO CUT THE STRAY STALKS. SOMETIMES SUGARKA AND I WOULD HELP THEM, BENDING AND WEAVING AND SINGING WITH THEM IN UNISON AS WE BOUND SHEAVES INTO BUNDLES WITH TWISTED STRAWS.
 
Genuine use case today during a community neighborhood cleanup.

I advised a crew that took down a lot that had been growing since last year.
We had two swinging blades with two bands, two L shaped swinging blades,
and my scythes. I had a brush blade, a weed blade, a grass blade, and
a blade that should never be used- the downward bending blade someone
ate up on a bench grinder that was my first post here.

Conclusions:
Initially, people naturally want to swing the scythe and hack with it.
I think people completely new to it ended up preferring the other
tools despite gentle coaching.

Some, however, were very good with the stone and I ended up with sharp
blades. I had a little more success demonstrating a gentle sweep through
the grass, then showing them a shaved off blade of grass to motivate
that the blade was razor sharp and the goal was to shave the lot a little at a
time.

On such high grass, I was able to see right away the difference the hafting angle makes
and closed down the longer blades.

I think I was one of those who learned the most from this exercise, having been
primed with videos and literature all winter.

Here is a real use case outcome- what can go wrong when you hack with a blade
that is too long and not in good condition:

broke.jpg


For people just starting out, in the future I'll go with the brush blade and snath for
the first time actually cutting anything.

We got the job done and had an interesting time of it. In the process, we found
a duck nest. The mother was able to fend us off by puffing her feathers and stayed
in her undisturbed patch while they worked and left some bread for her.
 
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Cool stuff, man! A shame about the busted loop bolt. Fortunately I know a place that can furnish a replacement. :)

The grass is just making a reappearance here so there's nothing to mow just yet. I'm itching for it to hurry up. A shaved-down bush snath (bush snath hardware usually being the most rugged) with a bush blade of lighter build with the tang angle adjusted like a weed or grass blade would make for a good beginner unit.
 
I've got the mowing bug, too, and there's jut not much to cut around here yet... I've been running the bush blade in sapling and brambles all winter, and mowing grass just feels weird to me. I'm reading through that nice guide that someone provided ;) and I think I know what I need to do, the shank runs on the ground in fine lawn grass, right?
 
The rib rides the ground with the edge close to the ground. I did a little light trimming yesterday just to get it out of my system a little (even though there wasn't much to mow) and these pictures might be helpful. Tang angle as matched to my biometrics and snath is 12°.


10310618_10203578910981808_6943116380888799708_n.jpg
 
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