Who else uses a scythe?

BG_Farmer said:
42,
Depending on grass type, I stop frequently, having found that sharp blade is biggest timesaver. Much like Abe Lincoln and the axe :)...
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And keeping a whipping stick handy will help reduce how often you need the stone, as well as help getting your finished edge the keenest it can be! :thumbup:
 
An initial proof of concept of the North Star snath. The snath is produced in two parts, and joined by an aluminum elbow. The halves in this case were both the same, but were technically both the upper half, as that was the component I received samples for. This resulted in too strong of a bend in the neck of the lower end, but the production version will have less severe of a curve.

The halves come overly long on purpose, allowing the user to trim them down to desired length. They can then be rotated in the aluminum coupling, allowing the snath to "shapeshift" to best adapt to the user's preference before being drilled and bolted in its final position. This has the benefit of allowing for a truly one-size-fits-all scalable stemless snath, and allows the snath to pack down for transport or shipping. Note the strong lateral bend of the upper half. This both places the hand in a very ergonomic position, but the end can be used as a grip in its own right when lifting the lay of the blade while mowing, as circumstances sometimes dictate.

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Boy, when they say white ash they sure do mean WHITE! Just got some snath blanks in from Seymour.

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Quite! To the best of my knowledge they still use select riven stock for them. There's rarely any runout except that caused by the taper.
 
A scythe thread! I grew up on a farm and once a week during spring and summer I had to walk the property line with a scythe to keep weeds from shorting out the electric fence. It was a two day ritual, east side then west. Sometimes I carried a sickle if growth was slow.
 
I watched another cultural video, this one from Norway and the scythe was quite small, the handle almost straight, all in all looked very light. The it showed where they were using it, on the side of a very step hill. To get what ever the vegetation they cut to the bottom of the hill, they had two methods. One was to put the cuttings into what looked like a big fishing net, tie it up and push it off, and bouncing down the hill it went, I did say steep hill. The next was a cable system, sort of a ski lift type arrangement, tie the bundle on to the cable and down the hill it went. As steep as the terrain was I then understood why the scythe was so small and light. John
 
John A. Larsen said:
I watched another cultural video, this one from Norway and the scythe was quite small, the handle almost straight, all in all looked very light. The it showed where they were using it, on the side of a very step hill. To get what ever the vegetation they cut to the bottom of the hill, they had two methods. One was to put the cuttings into what looked like a big fishing net, tie it up and push it off, and bouncing down the hill it went, I did say steep hill. The next was a cable system, sort of a ski lift type arrangement, tie the bundle on to the cable and down the hill it went. As steep as the terrain was I then understood why the scythe was so small and light. John
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Are you sure that wasn't the Swiss video? I remember the net and zipline.
 
BG-Farmer, Pretty sure it was Norway and the men where wearing large fixed bladed knives that looked to be the Brusletto Jaeger knife. John
 
BG_Farmer said:
Just interested if I'd seen it or not, this is the one I was talking about:
https://youtu.be/1mtvKzB8gbc

Would love to see similar from Norway. The one above makes my hills look very gentle :).
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A quick search turned up a few. Norway & Sweden. Using basic Swedish & Norwegian scythe related words in the search.

Nothing like that Swiss video Hi-lining haybales down hill.
Maybe the mowers zipline down at dinnertime !

btw, Seen no prominent belt knives, Just stone carriers.
 
Of course now i cannot find that video, definitely fixed bladed knives, looked like the large Brusletto Jaeger knife I have, and was in black and white in the 50's or 60's. Thanks for the link to that Swiss video! John
 
Pictures tomorrow when there's light but I scored a couple nice pieces for the collection today. A possibly pre-1850's nib (tanged, flared band, no ferrule--secured by means of a wedge), a NWT Co. "Little Giant" laminated blade in decent shape, and one of those funky scythe-tanged brush hook blades that the NWT Co. originally introduced and patented, except this example is unmarked and definitely wasn't made by them based on the tooling marks.
 
After a long time looking for it, I finally found that video from Norway about 1970, with a man and a woman using a short, straight handled scythe on the side of a step hill in Norway, later putting the foliage in a large net and pushing it down the hill. It starts out in a Fjord so wait a minute or two and then you will see them walking up a step hill, and the man is definitely wearing a large knife like a Brusletto Hunter.
The title is "Hoymeising" www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHkZ_gfwOMc
I also watched a Norwegian video about making axe heads, one small and one large back in 1979:
title is "Ljasmeden: Hornindal 1979 www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxOVfXqbtro

John
 
I will confess that I do not understand a lot about computers, and I see the link Hoymeising comes up as not available. I clicked on the second link, which does come up and to the right are other videos with similar subjects. The 5th one down is amazingly "Hoymeising" at 13:27 in length. I have looked at the link, tried several combinations of either O or 0 (zero) nothing seems to work, but the link is there and works when you click on the photo. Maybe someone more computer literate can figure it out. Sorry, John
 
[video=youtube;0HkZ_gfwOMc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HkZ_gfwOMc[/video]

[video=youtube;AxOVfXqbtro]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxOVfXqbtro[/video]
 
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