Who else uses a scythe?

One of the several proper ways to hold an American scythe nib. Note that the "grip" of the nib is only really grasped by the forefinger and thumb, and a little of the middle finger. A common mistake is to hammer-fist it and then cramp your hand because of it being round and having to hold overly hard to resist unintended rotation. When gripped properly like so this is in no way an issue. The tool is locked neatly into the hand, a natural angulation of the wrist provided, and the shaft of the snath used as a brace for the drawing action of the left hand during the stroke and the right hand on the return.

10415715_10203891349912586_5954486452112273614_n.jpg
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
And yes--good thin edges really help, and a slight hollow just makes it that much better. Harbor Freight has a cheapo $60 wet grinder but I hear the worm gear can strip easily. Still, if you were to replace it immediately with one made of brass instead I bet it would hold up.
Click to expand...
I am still thinking about the grinding. I am reluctant to get a power tool for the hand tools, but sharpening is hard work and I can imagine that an antique
manual powered unit will bring challenges of its own.

Are the oval stones helpful for maintaining the geometry of the edge?

Today I got a pair of replacement nibs in very good condition for $30.00. For the price, I also got a Seymour No 2 Brush snath and this blade:
swan.jpg

Any information on who made it? Is it the same maker as Seymour's blades with a tree stamp? It seems lighter, the edge has more curve,
and it comes to a more acute point. There are a couple of spots of damage, you can see the edge nicked and crumpled upward at the beard and
there is a slight bowing along the spine in the direction opposite of what would be desirable as crowning.
 
The blade is made by Redtenbacher of Austria, and is probably one of their older (better) production models. Early Redtenbachers aren't perfect by any means (I've yet to see an Austrian-made "American pattern" blade that looks truly correct) but much better than later and/or Schröckenfux examples in form. Both Redtenbacher and Schröckenfux produced blades for Seymour using the berry bush logo. The "reverse crown" is probably from someone plunging the tip in the dirt and bending the blade.

As far as power equipment goes, in this case it's just so much faster and easier. It's possible to make your own treadle stone, but even then it's going to be more work. And yes, as "canoe" scythe stones are like the intersection of two large diameter grinding wheels (think like just the very center overlap of a Venn diagram) if you use a rolling motion of the arm during the stroke you'll be maintaining your bevel shape while sharpening, which greatly reduces the frequency with which regrinding is necessary.

I'm actually exploring to find the very coarsest canoe stone I can as an alternative for those not wanting to invest in a full-blown grinding wheel.

Here's a clip I took yesterday of my honing process, including the use of a wooden whipping stick loaded with polishing compound.
[video=youtube;oNkrl40iZk8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNkrl40iZk8[/video]
 
Last year, I sharpened my Seymour grass blade rather conventionally with the flat sides of a lansky canoe stone. It got sharper every time but always seemed just short of where I wanted it to be. Over the winter and spring I watched the two old timers in the YouTube video and finally tried their sharpening technique with the edge of the stone, and "VIOLA" it works even better! Almost certainly for the reasons 42blades has articulated, and he was probably one of the reasons I thought it was worth a try. The shrockenfux stone I have hasn't been used but seems even coarser than the lansky(even a new one), but stones in general tend to become less aggressive after a little use even stored in water. This works out fine if you keep a stone for each blade.

I'm also interested in the completely round/oval stones specifically for scythes. There are a couple on online sites sold by a vendor from the UK, but I've been too cheap/lazy to try one out so far, as I have a working solution.
 
The oval ones are ok for field touchups if you have a means of regrinding a hollow bevel periodically, as they won't maintain the hollow like a canoe stone will, but because of their lesser surface contact with the bevel they do work faster.

I've seen the "cigar" stones from that eBay seller as well, yet haven't gotten 'round to picking one up for the same reason as you. :p
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
The blade is made by Redtenbacher of Austria, and is probably one of their older (better) production models. Early Redtenbachers aren't perfect by any means (I've yet to see an Austrian-made "American pattern" blade that looks truly correct) but much better than later and/or Schröckenfux examples in form. Both Redtenbacher and Schröckenfux produced blades for Seymour using the berry bush logo. The "reverse crown" is probably from someone plunging the tip in the dirt and bending the blade.
Click to expand...

I just tried it, despite still being able to see a reflection off of most of the edge. Working on it with sand paper I can tell that it has a hollow grind.
I bought this and my Derby and Ball grass snath and Rixford brush blade at the same place. I bet the blades were switched, with this one belonging
on the D and B and the Rixford belonging on the Seymore #2 snath. It seems the knowledge of how to use the instruments was not handed
down, but the care in storing them was (the fellow said he used them on thistles, both, but never learned to cut grass like so others). The blade is
not bent too badly and if I can get it sharp, it in combination with the Derby and Ball snath is what I'll show people. This is lighter than my berry
bush blades. Any suggestion on the curve of the blade short of sending it to Main (which I well might do in a big batch if we can't work out a local
sharpening solution)?
 
Have an anvil?

With that Seymour No.2 bush snath don't be afraid to shave that puppy WAY down. Talk about a crooked baseball bat! Even their No.1 "grass snaths" are laughably thick to be called as such. I consider the No.1 to be as thick as any bush snath needs to be unless you plan on using the scythe as a low-laying axe.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
Have an anvil?

With that Seymour No.2 bush snath don't be afraid to shave that puppy WAY down.
Click to expand...
On closer inspection, it seems this is exactly what was done for the top nib. It seems nib loops
are not universal? There are bigger ones for brush snaths like the No 2? Because on this one,
it seems as if they may have opened the loop past what would leave enough thread to adjust at the top
to get it on but near the position they chose, the snath was shaved way down into an oval and the loop
apparently hammered to shape at that spot.

On other notes, I think today I became aware of something that I have not really seen in the sharpening
and European vs. American discussions: the role of grinding stones.

I tried that old Austrian blade. First, I got it sharp. So sharp that I cut myself twice. As I did that,
it became very evident that it had a hollow grind. My flat stone hit at the back and the edge of the
bevel. Then I attached it to my D and B snath and took it for a scything
demonstration during a community picnic. It had just rained and the grass had been mowed maybe
the day before. I could not find anything nice to mow, so I just set up in a convenient spot on the grass
and demonstrated a single arc. I swept around the damp grass and it came off in fistfuls, as good or better
than anything I have seen on videos.

Here is my observation: this blade was sharpened on a large diameter grinding wheel, maybe like the one in
the painting on a certain web site that offers sharpening services. You can see the bevel in the picture with the tang
as a point of reference. My other blades, with the narrow steep factory edge, could not start to compete, no matter
how sharp I got them. Perhaps the use of large diameter grinding wheels that are no longer seen these days
was an important factor in the utility of the American pattern historically?
 
panyo said:
On closer inspection, it seems this is exactly what was done for the top nib. It seems nib loops
are not universal? There are bigger ones for brush snaths like the No 2? Because on this one,
it seems as if they may have opened the loop past what would leave enough thread to adjust at the top
to get it on but near the position they chose, the snath was shaved way down into an oval and the loop
apparently hammered to shape at that spot.

On other notes, I think today I became aware of something that I have not really seen in the sharpening
and European vs. American discussions: the role of grinding stones.

I tried that old Austrian blade. First, I got it sharp. So sharp that I cut myself twice. As I did that,
it became very evident that it had a hollow grind. My flat stone hit at the back and the edge of the
bevel. Then I attached it to my D and B snath and took it for a scything
demonstration during a community picnic. It had just rained and the grass had been mowed maybe
the day before. I could not find anything nice to mow, so I just set up in a convenient spot on the grass
and demonstrated a single arc. I swept around the damp grass and it came off in fistfuls, as good or better
than anything I have seen on videos.

Here is my observation: this blade was sharpened on a large diameter grinding wheel, maybe like the one in
the painting on a certain web site that offers sharpening services. You can see the bevel in the picture with the tang
as a point of reference. My other blades, with the narrow steep factory edge, could not start to compete, no matter
how sharp I got them. Perhaps the use of large diameter grinding wheels that are no longer seen these days
was an important factor in the utility of the American pattern historically?
Click to expand...

A lot of old Seymour snaths, particularly those from the 60's through the present, are often really out of round. This is, I presume, due to cost saving measures in production. During bending there's a high failure rate (according to a source of mine their current rate is 40%) and one of the things that results in failure is a delamination of the wood in the form of a split open crack. I think when the wood was shaved down oval it as because there was a partial delamination at that zone and they just shaved off enough wood to fully remove it without bothering to true up the rest of the snath (which would have been a lot of added time.) Unfortunately that means that when they installed the nibs the band got squeezed into an oval shape as well and becomes immovable. To remove it you typically need to unscrew the grip completely then drive a narrow wedge into the top of the loop in between the bands to open it up. I use an old cold chisel that I rounded the edge on. After you get it off, find the narrowest parts of the snath, shave those to true round, then shave everywhere else to true up the taper so it's smooth and continuous from the neck all the way to the tail.

And yes, a hollow ground edge (while not strictly necessary) massively increases performance. The closer to the edge itself you get, the greater the order of magnitude of influence the specific geometry has on the cutting performance of the tool. A hollow grind enables a very thin edge but a short bevel compared to that required of a flat grind to achieve the same effective edge angle, and that increases the rigidity of the blade during the cut much like how the piece of folded metal along the back of a single edged razor blade provides stiffness. While if cutting very thick materials a longer bevel is advantageous to cutting performance, the actual part of the blade that really makes the cut need only be truly "perfectly optimal" for the width of the material being cut since anything beyond that depth isn't actually working to separate the material.

I'm hoping to get my hands on some extremely coarse (120 grit) scythe stones very soon to be used as a manual substitute for a grinding wheel for producing the hollow. To do very quickly a fine cut file could be used to file a flat bevel very thin (use just the tip of the file so you can go lower than the spine if it causes clearance issues on narrow blades--you want that roughly 9° edge under most circumstances!) and then use the coarse stone with a rolling stroke of arm to hog off the metal in the middle of the bevel. For overly soft blades you'd be able to technically peen them, but would only be able to do so if you knew they weren't laminated since you need the edge centered in the body of the web if it's laminated in order for the hard core steel to comprise the edge. One could use both a narrow peening anvil and the cross pein face of the peening hammer at the same time to create a hollow on both sides at once, but on a laminated blade (or hard monosteel blade) you'd run a high risk of cracking the edge through over-peening if you don't know what you're doing. One of the reasons why it's generally inadvisable to peen American blades even if a master can do it. Little advantage and high risk.

When resharpening use the curved edge of a stone and try to match the hollow of the bevel to maintain it--while it will take a little longer to a restore an edge using this much bevel contact it greatly extends the period between when you need to rehollow the bevel. :)
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
...I'm hoping to get my hands on some extremely coarse (120 grit) scythe stones very soon to be used as a manual substitute for a grinding wheel for producing the hollow...
Click to expand...

Norton makes a synthetic stone suitable for scythes (item# 87938) that's listed on the packaging as being "coarse".

$_57.JPG
 
@stevetall,
Thanks, I've seen that one but didn't know it was "coarse". Definitely worth a try! The lansky works great on us-type steel blades for my field use, but a coarser stone would be nice for initial sharpening and/or thicker weed/brush blades. Some of the european scythe-stones are nice, but a little too gentle for my uses, except when I'm just whetting for a break :)....
 
Yeah--they're 120 grit silicon carbide. They also make an American pattern one (straight stick, lens-shaped cross section) and I've been in communication with them about being able to make them in finer grit as well. Lansky lists their stone as 380 grit.

I find that in general the stones considered as "medium" for continental scythes rank as extremely fine for American blades. They'll put a stupid-sharp edge on them, but don't do much good for anything beyond final honing and light touchups. I like to use a Bergamo "Green Dragon" natural stone right now as my fine honing stone, but for anything more than that I use the Lansky, and in cases where I hit a rock or cut through a few hillocks by accident then a truly coarse stone would be a heck of a boon.

I do most of my sharpening work with scythe stones these days. They're just a very versatile shape for a portable bonded abrasive stone. I wish more of the natural ones had the flats cut smooth as it allows them to be used for things like knives etc.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
Yeah--they're 120 grit silicon carbide. They also make an American pattern one (straight stick, lens-shaped cross section) and I've been in communication with them about being able to make them in finer grit as well. Lansky lists their stone as 380 grit.

I find that in general the stones considered as "medium" for continental scythes rank as extremely fine for American blades. They'll put a stupid-sharp edge on them, but don't do much good for anything beyond final honing and light touchups. I like to use a Bergamo "Green Dragon" natural stone right now as my fine honing stone, but for anything more than that I use the Lansky, and in cases where I hit a rock or cut through a few hillocks by accident then a truly coarse stone would be a heck of a boon.

I do most of my sharpening work with scythe stones these days. They're just a very versatile shape for a portable bonded abrasive stone. I wish more of the natural ones had the flats cut smooth as it allows them to be used for things like knives etc.
Click to expand...

Great info thanks.

The rozsutec Smooth on four sides is beautiful on knives and axes if I want to pamper them, but way too fine for use in most of my scythe work. I like the bregenzer stone also, but only have the lighter one, which is nice for touching up my work knife (twine is hard on edges it seems); I would like to try the coarser one for my scythe someday, but I'm already in danger of being a collector, even if the lansky gets the most use...they are pretty and great sharpening tools all around.
 
I have a bunch of different synthetics on the way from Italy for testing from Falci, Angelo, and Rinaldi. Should be interesting to see how they perform. I think that for most American pattern users a combo of the Norton and the Lansky will cover their needs well. If further refinement proves necessary for things like lawn work then a whipping stick loaded with emery or chromium oxide polishing compound should suffice.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
I have a bunch of different synthetics on the way from Italy for testing from Falci, Angelo, and Rinaldi. Should be interesting to see how they perform...
Click to expand...

One factor to compare is how fast (or slowly) they wear down. I heard that a certain Dollar Store had some canoe-shaped sharpening stones (from China, of course), so I tried one. It wore down so fast, it wasn't even worth a dollar!
 
Completely! The friability needs to be matched to the material being abraded and the grit of the abrasive. If it's too slow the stone loses its abrasive rating as the grains wear and it can clog with metal particles. If it wears too quickly then it'll wear down to nothing faster than the abrasive grains are actually being worn out.
 
In spite of my complaints about the current production Seymour blades, here's some proof that they do at least cut! Both the snath and blade are brand spankin' new out of the package and the only modification other than positioning the nibs is the blade has had a fresh edge ground on it and the tang given a 10° angle.

[video=youtube;osNiBdDbod4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osNiBdDbod4&feature=youtu.be[/video]
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top