Who else uses a scythe?

FortyTwoBlades said:
Not that they couldn't have also used other marks, but it's interesting that the Davistown Museum registry does not note this particular marking as being used. Likewise the fact that it's under the name "JH Witherell & Co". Makes me wonder if it's an early piece.
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Here's a business directory listing for J.H. Witherell & Co. (scythes and axes) for Littleton, NH, in 1882:

books


The Manchester, New Hampshire, Directory, Sampson & Murdock Company, 1882

Note that the New Hampshire Scythe Co. is listed right beside it (probably the same factory in Littleton, with different product lines?)

So it looks to me like that blade was made in Littleton, New Hampshire, sometime between 1880-1885.
 
Some new goodies from Arti of Russia. I've grown quite fond of these, as far as Euro-style blades go.

"Transformer" folding scythe.
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Weed cutter. Sort of a cross between a long handled grass hook, regular scythe, and a corn hook.
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It uses this nifty wooden wedge and cam ring attachment.
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One of their shortest and longest blades next to each other. Nominal lengths 40cm and 100cm.
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The 40cm blade.
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The 100cm blade. I guess they don't sell many of these (which is odd--it's a great length!) and had to make up a few to fill my order.
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Label closeup.
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A cam ring on its own.
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A snath grip. I don't like this, honestly, as the grip easily rotates on its shaft. I'll stick with nibs.
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I also got a peening jig but forgot to snap pics of it. It's ok overall. Single cap, covered in black gloss paint. The face of the cap has a nice radius to it but has a slight ridge from machining that needs to be softened with sandpaper so it doesn't impart it to the blade in use. The cap itself is of good hardness but I think the base is a little soft, and it deformed under use with my very heavy hammer (3lb) that I like to use when roughing in bevels using the Schröckenfux jig. It'd probably have survived a lighter hammer without issue.
 
That's a scythe-type grass hook, as distinct from sickle-type grass hooks. A No.9 Little Giant by the North Wayne Tool Co. of Oakland, Maine, most likely made in the 40's or 50's. Not a scythe, but included in the thread topic and made by a famous scythe company. :)
 
Some destructive testing of my upcoming "North Star" American style scythe ring. It's cut from a solid billet of A36 for a seamless design of varied wall thickness. It functions like an American loop bolt but passes around the snath rather than through it--like the rings that the Sta-Tite snath company used on some of their models, though theirs were large and heavy cast iron.

The ring destroyed in the video was one of the two initial prototypes, with fine threads that galled under the extreme pressure that this ring easily produces. The other ring depicted uses a coarse thread, which is what I'll be going with in the final version. The hammer used weighs a bit over 3lbs and it took about 12 minutes of pounding to fatigue the metal to the point that it broke. Annealing after doing some of the work would have further increased how much abuse it could have taken.

[video=youtube;rMfjYVSBnqw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMfjYVSBnqw&feature=youtu.be[/video]
 
Lieblad said:
Nice looking ring...

Just so you know,,
Its considered mortal sin to pound cold steel upon an anvil...
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What do you call peening then? :D A good hard anvil can take work like this without incident. The form being hollow, there was rarely direct hammer/steel/anvil impact occurring. I certainly would avoid heavy direct interface with cold steel, but it's fine in many circumstances so long as the comparative hardnesses are appropriate and the blows delivered are not in excess of sensible force. :)
 
Oh I have all sorts of stuff in development right now. We'll get to the snath stuff later, but the tip of the iceberg is that I'm now able to buy unfitted blanks from Seymour, so with the end shaved down properly these will fit. They'll be matched with both a heel and bearing plate. The snath I used that blood-based stain on is prepped to receive the plates and then I'll be able to use them in tandem. I have the current ring set up with a bearing plate on a cheap modified Italian snath right now that I've been using with the Arti blades, but I can't wait to get it on a LIGHT American snath. :)
 
Hey Lieblad--HERE's something you'd enjoy. Rune Stenholm Jakobsen just finished his scything manual! I've been following his progress on it for some time now, so it's exciting to see it wrapped up so nicely.
 
I hope so, but for now just reading the free .PDF version and copy/pasting blocks of text into Google Translate does a fairly good job. Not perfect, of course, but Google seems to handle Swedish-->English a little better than many other languages. I've let him know that if he ever comes out with a hardcopy English translation I'd gladly buy one. It's a very thorough manual.
 
Lots of more scythe-y things going on here that I haven't had time to properly document yet. Got my hands on a few vintage natural scythe stones, one of them a Canadian Red End by the Read Stone Co. of New Brunswick, and the other a Shapleigh Hardwear "Diamond Edge" stone. I haven't received it yet but I also managed to snag a 1893 illustrated price list by David Wadsworth & Son. Looking forward to seeing that one.
 
Just keeping an eye on thing here... My scythe works a treat and is easily faster than my string trimmer, but a little less precise. ;)
 
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