Sickle

[Mikegtr]

Advice wanted regarding a Sickle. Small overgrown lawn / small hedges to cut.
'Novice' to the sickle-hence questions:

a) Serrated blade v Non serrated blade?
b) There's a lot for sale under £10---any good? (You get what you pay for)?
c) Fully 'curved' blade?
d ) Any recommendations regarding make / where to buy a quality one?
e) Best type of sharpening stone--what is it made off?

Many thanks.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

A sickle works best if you can hold what you are cutting - and it's pretty backbreaking work. It's not really designed for land clearance or lawn mowing.

The lawn would benefit from either sheep, or a scythe. Anything scrubby and messy involving small bushes or trees and you want a bill hook or staff hook. Only a perfectionist, a masochist or a druid would use a sickle.

 

[Inspector]

I would borrow, rent or buy a string trimmer and a hedge trimmer or combination type with one power head and the attachments. Don't forget the ear plugs, goggles and anti-vibration gloves. I have a scythe that my dad and I used from when I was a kid and have gone over to the dark side of power. A sickle on a hedge is asking for a deep poke in the leg.

Pete

 

[Ttrees]

A long handled slasher may be what you're after, 3648 × 2736 I don't have my one razor sharp,
although I might if I had a buffer.
I make do with a cheap round man made hone bout the size of a corn in the cob.

 

[marcros]

Strimmer and hedge trimmer seem to be the tools for the job. If budget is the issue, first choice for me would be to ask around your friends, somebody will likely have one and may either come and help you or lend the tools. At a push, hand shears would be better than a sickle. Slow going though.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

A long handled slasher, aka a billhook.

 

[Ttrees]

Not being too knowledgable on old farm tools, I was under a google impression that the one I use (not mine but the landlords, had some specific name or pattern of bilhook, which I couldn't find.
So it's just called a long handled bilhook?
Great thing, I'm surprised my auld lad hasn't one.


Thanks
Tom

 

[pe2dave]

When young, I used a long handled sickle (15" blade?) to cut long grass. Sharpened with a scythe stone (tapered mid - end, round, quite rough). The blade was smooth and razor sharp.
Not for a hedge though. The 'slashers' above are surely for slashing hedges to make sound barriers?
To trim a hedge, buy / borrow a hedge trimmer, or if in reasonable state, hand (grass) shears perhaps?

 

[Adam W.]

Shears for a hedge and a scythe for the lawn.

Oh, forgot.

If you get a scythe, you'll need to find out how to sharpen it properly with a hammer, and we all know that leads to Sh@*pening threads on the internet. Yikes!

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Different places have different names. I would call one of these a staff hook, and it is for cutting, cleaning and trimming Cornish hedges, among other things. It should be pretty sharp, and people in the know cut an inch or so off the end of the hook to improve the balance, because manufactures of tools never actually use the tools they manufacture.

https://www.tooled-up.com/spear-and-jackson-west-country-staff-brushing-hook/prod/8722/
I would have called your long handled slasher a billhook, but it still does the job. More for beating things to death than cutting and tidying - laying hedges possibly, but it lacks finesse.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Shears for a hedge and a scythe for the lawn.

Oh, forgot.

If you get a scythe, you'll need to find out how to sharpen it properly with a hammer, and we all know that leads to Sh@*pening threads on the internet. Yikes!

Don't forget to overwinter your scythe in an apple tree, to make sure the blade rusts to be wafer thin.

 

[Adam W.]

That's interesting. There seems to be a tradition for that in Germany too, as the orchards always had scythes under the trees. I know that German farmers aren't lazy, so you've just answered a long standing question of why are they there.

 

[Limey Lurker]

Shears for a hedge and a scythe for the lawn.

Oh, forgot.

If you get a scythe, you'll need to find out how to sharpen it properly with a hammer, and we all know that leads to Sh@*pening threads on the internet. Yikes!

Scythes aren't sharpened; they're DRESSED!

 

[Adam W.]

Scythes aren't sharpened; they're DRESSED!

ALRIGHT!

 

[Rorschach]

I like my bolo machete for general clearance stuff, cheap and cheerful, handles anything up to about an inch would no trouble

 

[Jacob]

Scythe for the lawn, sickle for the edges. Neither for hedges (you could cut your head off).
Easy to sharpen with an ordinary scythe stone. Stand on handle end upside down - 3 strokes off the bottom (top facing) edge, one stroke on the other.
"Dressing" is peining the edge (with a ball pein hammer on an anvil or equivalent) to harden it, if you do a lot of that sort of thing.
I just bought one of these 12" TAPERED SHARPENING STONE FOR CURVED BLADES Allotment/Garden Scythe/Bill Hook 5055143914368 | eBay - they tend to get lost in the grass but sometimes 2 or 3 of them will turn up out of the blue. You can buy a stylish holster but it's cheaper to lose them and buy another one.

 

[hairy]

I put a shorter thicker bush blade on my scythe which works better on scrubby stuff. A grass blade being more open takes a thicker slice which puts a lot of stress on the attachment point and you may not get far unless what you're cutting is evenly easy to slice. A scythe is also supposed to be a little fitted to you to get the sweep flat to the ground. Not used a sickle much, and a billhook is quite a crude thing unless you're trying to lay a hedge. A slasher would be better if you were trying to avoid power tools?

Lots of info here Austrian Scythes for sale.

 

[ecokestove]

If you are cutting grass with scythe or sickle it must be sharpened with a coarse stone. This is to give you a sort of saw edge, not a smooth razor edge. My wisdom comes helping on a farm in the late '50s and working as a labourer for the Forestry commission in the mid '60s.

 

[dickm]

+1 for the saw edge theory of leaving the scythe in a tree to rust slightly (but why an apple tree - seems to be the norm?). Terminology of edge tools for hedges, grass etc. seems to be a minefield. To some, a billhook is what I'd call a hacker, straight or hooked blade for cutting thickish timber when pleaching a hedge or for splitting kindling. A billhook was definitely the long handled half-moon blade in 1950s Herefordshire. In the right hands, and with a good dense hedge, properly laid, it can make a very tidy job, much more quickly than shears.
However, in this day and age, string trimmer for the grass and powered hedge trimmer (ideally, good quality battery tools, but corded if you are careful with the cable) are the way to go. Don't ask me what can happen if you are not careful with a corded trimmer .....

 

[Limey Lurker]

ALRIGHT!

Sorry, folks! I forgot that there's an underline option!