Keith wrote: Snip
> You make scythe blades? "The standard scythe blade used today is 27.5 > inches long, made of hammered steel in 26 separate steps, and curved > in every dimension to optimise the cut" it says here. Aleks Kac sent > us two such scythes from Slovenia. They're like the Austrian scythes > recommended by David Tresemer, Elliot Fishbein and others as being > vastly superior to the American-style scythe, and sold in the US by > people like Lehman's (who supply the Amish, among others), but they > cost about $60 and up. They're cheap in Slovenia though, where such > traditions are still, well, traditional (for now). Feeling much the > same about airfreight and couriers as Todd does, and me too, Aleks > sent them by surface mail, but somehow they came by air anyway. > They're beautiful things. Something of a challenge to make one. Well I am rather glad that I did not know that, because if I had I would probably never have attempted to solve the problem myself. What happened was I drove over my old scythe with my tractor and snapped the blade in two, I re-pointed and sharpened the remaining half but it was too short to be any good. I had old Datsun leaf springs laying around and the next to top leaf was curved about right I thought and it was chamfered thinner at both ends. I cut about a 3rd off giving me a thicker end to shape to the shaft (handle) end ground out the pointed shape and then ground down a lot of steel to thin the blade and finally shape it. It took a while and used up a few grinding disks but it was all done with a hand held angle grinder and I still use the grinder but with a flap disk to sharpen it up as needed. Well, it may not look exactly like a proper scythe and it is heavier but it works just fine. I use it mostly to keep the grass and weeds down under my electric fencing. Later I made another one for a friend who has a summer house in this area and he never gets here until later in the year by which time his grass is uncut able with an ordinary lawn mower so he uses his to cut his whole garden once a year. I probably shouldn't have called it a scythe.......if you saw the snow plough I rigged up out of an old water tank ...... but it too works just fine :-) >> from worn out metal saw blades which >> can be had for free from mechanical workshops they can be had in 10 and 15 >> centimetre widths. This steel is hardened and will allow excellent sharpness >> but if you want a particular shape ask them to plasma cut the form you want, >> if you cut with acetelyn/oxygen the heat will spoil the hardening - you can >> re harden but it's not that easy. If you want to get into hardening an >> alternative material source would be vehicle leaf springs from the junk >> yard. > > Good, I'd thought of leaf springs. I have some old circular saw > blades that I've made knives from, nothing special, workshop and farm > knives, but they're good, take a nice edge. > >>> And I don't have an anvil. I'm really sorry I didn't get a cheap one from >>> China when we were in Hong Kong. They cost an arm and a leg here in >>> Japan. I do have a two-foot length of heavy steel girder though, I >>> guess it'll do for now, >> >> Yes it will be fine for a lot of situations - an alternative is a length or >> two of railway track. >> >>> but I'll miss the fancy bits, the pritchel >>> hole, hardie hole, the table >> >> An upside down bit of railway track makes a reasonable table. >> >>> and especially the horn. >> >> A right way up railway track piece can be acetelyn/oxygen cut roughly to >> shape and ground down to your needs. Oh yes, and in my opinion these bits >> should be mounted on a piece of tree trunk rather than a steel girder for >> example because the wood will return a readable 'feedback' in time which a >> steel pedestal can never do. > > Ha! I've just found an anvil! I think... They throw away tools here > (!), superb sets of tools get garbaged when old craftsmen die and > their sons aren't interested, very sad - but nice to find! I never > found an anvil though, but I just met someone who did. He'll check it > out, should know in a couple of days. Well done, even though it is sad, it's the same here. The silver lining is that another friend makes nails and hooks on his anvil, he charges 39 Skr per hook (about $5) though a hook will take him nearly 5 minutes to bash into shape - he sells plenty to the nostalgic with more money than sense. >>> Actually I don't have any of the tools, but if I can make a >> sickle then I can >>> make tools too. >> >> Yes, that's the fun thing but if you are setting up a forge please remember >> that all coals are not suitable and that your raw material must contain >> sufficient carbon to be forgeable and not all suppliers these days know the >> difference. > > I was thinking of charcoal. There's no shortage of wood around here. > What do you think of charcoal, Go? I'm not sure - I was able to get hold of a large supply about 10 years ago and 2/3 is still left. What I was thinking about is the controllability of heating the coals to different intensities by bellows or forced air (my first blown air was an old vacuum cleaner with the hose stuck in the back end) and I am not sure how this would work with charcoal. The other thing is that in some situations you may want to increase the carbon content of the steel you are working on and this can be done in coal - again I am not sure about charcoal but now I am curious, give me a couple of days! In a village nearby there is a (and the only one in Sweden) blacksmiths museum and they have guest smithys demonstrating their crafts - some time ago a well known art smith brought his daughter along, she too was training to become a smithy and for her examination was making her own wedding dress in chain mail, each tiny link was formed from rod which had to be heated just right, cut just right with hammer and chisel, bent exactly round, inserted into its neighbouring links and then driven (fuse welded) into a solid ring. Wow, that was one proud dad. The two of them working together was amazing to watch, their timing and syncronisation like mind reading - I wish I had had a video camera. Check dad Berth's operation out at: >http://www.volund.se/ And daughter Theresa at: (see that snake broche - it's also tattooed on her chest 8-) >http://hem.spray.se/smedjatherese/ >>> I do have a couple of really good books, and there >>> are good blacksmithing sites on the Web. Yes, I have a few links too but I need to be honest with you and the group and would like to bring up the topic 'Genuine smithy craft' as against 'Modern cheating'. I mean 99 times out of 100 when I need to bend and bash something metal I can fire up my axy/ace tubes, heat the thing to cherry red or white, do the business and switch off the gas again within just a minute or so, if I cared to add a few hammer marks no one would be able to see the difference to that object than if it had been genuinely forge heated, though of course that process would have taken a couple of hours to acomplish and cost a lot more instead of the few minutes and small gas depletion. Another advantage of gas heat is I get it exactly where I want it, in the forge the heated area can never be 'thin'. So a usual comment is that 'OK, it is a thingy and it does what it is supposed to do but its not the genuine article'. What is it then I ask? And the response is 'A modern forgery!' My hooks look better I think and more forged than those of my my friends who actually forges and when he runs out he sells mine instead - he still makes the profit though, but I don't mind helping him out (that's another story) :-) I suppose what is happening is that a comparison is being made between handcraft against assisted (machine) craft. This is not the same as an original oil painting and a printed version where originality is easily identified to any viewer. But, if Picasso say had taught a robot to paint his moves, motives, durations etc and the robot then painted hundreds of 'identical' pictures....would they be worth millions as his or peanuts as forgeries.The dumb thing is probably that the robot pictures would aquire a 'novelty' value...hmmm.... Anyway, my point is that if you are a hobbyist or you are self reliant and want to manipulate and glue metal then you don't really need a forge 99% of the time. When our predecessors started using water or wind power for their hammers to do the bashing bit of smithying did they cheat or falsify their original craft? Well, I am convinced that any Valone would have hailed that advantage as entirely nescessary. Now we use compressed air and my hook making friends forge is air fed with an old warning siren fan? The thing about Berth and Therese is that they are nichad primarily as artists and their produce is aesthetic as are traditional artists/sculpturors etc. I have no idea about how oxy/ace is made but coal has to be mined and coke heated, charcoal too needs energy to become and start and so on, and all of this stuff has to be handled and distributed and profitizes. I cant work this out but I bet my hooks are environmentally better than my friends. The other thing was that none of the pictures on my walls cost anything, (except photo's of kids and stuff) are not originals (except for my own daubings) yet I am invited to swell doings - go figure! Snip >> Ha det sŒ bra > > My few words of Swedish don't go that far Go (so now you know how few > they are). What's it mean? Literally 'have it so good' which would be the equivalent of 'have a nice day' Skšt om dig (Er) Go. That would be: Look after yourself (yourselves). ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. 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