I found out yesterday that the long handle on a scythe is called the snath. I also found out that scythes need to be peened regularly. And there are more YouTube videos than I expected about scythes, scything, and peening.
Did you know that there are three main ways to peen a scythe?
I did not know that. I’m pretty sure my scythe needs peening and the snath clearly needs to be oiled. That would be an oil finish on the wooden snath, not lubrication.
Which reminds me, I need to polish my spurtle.
If you need to buy a new blade, you can get one that’s been triple-peened.
For the time being I’m going to assume I have an American scythe made with very hard steel that doesn’t require peening. Also I don’t actually use it for anything so it’s as sharp as the day my sons emerged from the basement of our brand new previously owned house shouting “Dad, Dad! We found a death thing!”. But the snath and grips are very old and dry. They’ll need some oil to refresh the wood and lower the grain, followed by finishing.
Those things look like they’d be good for rapping knuckles.
Why the heck would you make a cutting instrument out of steel soft enough that it actually needs to be hammered back into shape with normal usage? The only scenario I can think of is wanting a very thin blade for maximum sharpness, and then wanting it to deform rather than break under stress. Why would scythes be unique in that regard?
And could a modern one be made of ceramic, or a composite, like carbon fibre?
Whatever you make it from, you need a multi-stage process to sharpen it properly. You start with the whetstone and stropping leather, of course, but then you need to continue with wool, cotton, silk, spiderweb, the night wind, and the first rays of dawn.
They’re being hammered to harden them before honing. The softer steel produces a lighter blade that can flex and deform more before breaking. These are instruments that need frequent sharpening so peening will harden a narrow area at the cutting edge of the blade to sharpen and leave the rest more ductile. I assume the practice is mainly a tradition started for economic reasons because frequent sharpening rapidly wore out blades and using harder metal would require a heavier and more costly blade that would not last any longer than the softer ones.
That makes a blade so sharp it will cut a blacksmith’s finger when it is inches from the blade.
I learned yesterday, while watching one of those history shows about how the food in America came to be, that Henry Ford helped promote barbecue.
As a shrewd businessman, he didn’t want to waste anything, including the wood scraps that accumulated in his factories. As an avid outdoorsman, he wanted people to cook outside.
So he figured out how to turn that excess wood into charcoal briquettes, and for a while he enlisted one of his men, a guy named Kingsford, to run a side business selling charcoal.
The backyard barbecue didn’t take off until after Ford (and Kingsford) had died, but Kingsford Charcoal - ubiquitous in America - was originally a Ford company.
And much of the Hubble Space telescope was made by the same company as makes my mom’s canning supplies. Ball Aerospace and Ball Jars have since split into separate companies, but they originated as one.
Not to mention what the extra weight would mean to the poor bastard swinging it all day.
Lucy had her fingers in everything!
The principals of the original Ball Brothers Company, the five Ball brothers, also founded Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.
David Letterman’s alma mater.
Yep, Grandma taught me how to do it when I was a kid. I don’t have the tools any more and the hill that required scything is now terraced. But this sure takes me back.
Since I don’t think I’ve ever seen a scythe in real life, I’m reminded of these lines from The Importance of Being Earnest:
Cecily: When I see a spade I call it a spade.
Gwendolen: I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.
Hell, I lived on a farm for a while and I’m never seen a scythe. Where do you attach it to the tractor?