Rush cutting sickle/knife?

[tombear]

Picked this up today from Colne Tools where Mike had put it aside for me.



Unfortunately I have managed to misplace the photo of the only definite example of a rush knife I've come across from a book on primative lighting that i had to get on inter library lone many years ago and which I cannot recall the title of. As far ax I can recall this is vert much like that one but the blade on this is wider, which may be merely a case of the other was even more worn. The roughly carved grip was very much like this one. On the one in the book the tip of the blade wad more cranked over.

The whole thing is quite small, as long as my forearm and hand , from elbow to finger tip and the blade has the remains or serrations. It is somewhat like a modern garden sickle for cutting brambles and other woody weeds.

The only thing I've been able to find thats similar is another hand made one on ebay.

Pardon our interruption...

www.ebay.co.uk

Can anyone tell me anything about this type of knife, what it's really for if it isn't for cutting rushes? If it is what I hope I'll make a copy to use.

Thanks!

Tom

 

[Toddy]

Look at post No.24 on this thread. If we could find a link to that catalogue, it might be helpful....Steve talked about a cranked handle....

Small sickle

Just thought I'd bring this back to let the people interested know that I haven't forgotten and I'll make the blades as soon as I can order the steel, sometimes next week.

bushcraftuk.com

 

[tombear]

Cheers Mary. After much digging g I found the photocopies , no title page so i still Don't know the name of the book but heres the pic.





As I recalled the blade is more hook like than the one we found. How typical the one above is there's no way of telling or if it's been correctly identified in the first place. There may be regional and period variations in any case. I think I need to look for period illustrations of people harvesting rushes in the hope that they show the tools used z vurate.y.

From my experiance of harvesting rushes the stems can be quite tough, especially if.lyby the handful and when with a very sharp knife it's needed a sawing action ro part a bundle fro the roots. So a serrated n,ade would probably work we'll. The arched handle would certainly help cutting as close to the ground as you can, getting g as much of the thickest part of the stem as possible.

I think with the wider blade it would work well as a general foraging too I'm in twominds about the cranked tip, for pulling stuff towards you but would be a pig to make a waterpoof sheath for.

Atb

Tom

 

[tombear]

The hook was sold a few years back and the book was listed in the auction entry

Caspall, Fire & Light in the Home pre-1820 (2000), p. 201, Figures 467 & 468.

Bonhams : An 18th century wrought iron and oak rush scythe or hook, North European (3)

Having a curved, narrow blade with decorative lines and notches, 40cm high , together with an 18th century cast iron grisset pan, probably Sussex , raised on three supports, the handle with three grooves, 26.5cm wide x 29cm deep x 10cm high , and a 19th century boarded oak mural rush-box , with...

www.bonhams.com

Think I may make one of those boxes.

ATB

Tom

Found another rush hook in a auction

4 tools - Llanlli pattern reap hook marked Canada Axe Co. 1916, an unusual serrated rush hook, Sh

Bid Live on Lot 1921 in the The Tim Price Collection of Agricultural, Rural, Equestrian & Domestic Bygones, Traps, Tools etc In conjunction with the Reading Carriage Sale Auction from Thimbleby & Shorland .

www.the-saleroom.com

And herself has found me a copy of the book at Abebooks for ten quid plus change, nice!

 

[Toddy]

Nice present

The page I quoted has a mention of a 'crank handed' hook, and I wonder just what rushes?
We gathered the water rushes from the loch by reaching down and cutting through them with a very sharp plain hook, but the hook was almost right angled to the haft.
Those rushes we used for basket making, but when they were peeled (the skins make really good string) the centre cores are excellent rush lights. Thicker than a pencil and they burn for a lot longer than the small field rush.

Felicity Irons says of her harvesting of the water rush in England that they use a thin almost scythe like tool to cut their's. We didn't gather anywhere near as much, we just went out in a wee rowing boat and reached over the side.

Harvesting English freshwater bullrush | Rush Matters

Felicity irons spends the summer months of June, July and August harvesting English freshwater bulrush (Scirpus Lacustris, Schoeneplectus) on the River Great Ouse in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, the Nene in Northamptonshire and on the Avon River in Warwickshire.

www.rushmatters.co.uk

 

[tombear]

The Engiish texts mention just soft rushes, juncus effusus and common rushes , juncus conglomerates which grow on sometimes boggy land but not underwater as such. When I've cut them at the height of summer, the grounds been firm and I've held the knife parallel to the ground with my knuckles brushing the turf.

Getting mutton suet will be a bigger problem than getting good rushes.

I'd like to fill the tin rushlight box my mates made me with better than what's in it now.



ATB

Tom

 

[Toddy]

Those field rushes we use to make rush rope for kishies, traditional creel back carrying baskets....and we pull the rushes, we don't cut them. We get really good rushes this way, unbroken, good length and they slip out of their outer leaves and make really good rope.

I wondered about a reed hook, but unfortunately all that comes up when looking for it is the reedhook used to thread the warps on a loom A different beast entirely

 

[tombear]

You need a cut end to peel from for rush lights and it helps with the overnight soaking. I usually trim both ends before soaking to get the best 12 to 18 inches of rush.

What I really want t is a real grisset. We dug a 19th or earlier century sledge hammer head out of the garden years ago so ive a big lump of wrought iron to batter in to crude shape once we get the small forge we built set up.

Atb

Tom

 

[Toddy]

True enough though I know that pulling them gives me the best ones with no fuss or bother.
I cut the ones beside my pond to level them all down, but it's a snash to sort them out afterwards.

I have a cast iron bird bath....which is no damned use because it's just a rusty mess, and it's headed for the coup....but, it's the right shape for a grisset wide, shallow, oval, kind of thing.
Might be worth a looksee for similar ?
Failing that could you not beat one out of copper sheet ? Lot of old immersion boilers going to be headed to the scrap I know where the bits of mine are, no idea how I'd post though.

M

 

[tombear]

Aye I've been looking for a suitable donar vessel to use. The nearest I've found so far is a couple of ugly old 1970s stainless steel serving dish things. I could drill holes for legs and use nuts and bolts, rivet on a long handle. But I'd rather get one I could demonstrate with.

For the rendering down of the mutton suet when found a source, I'm doing up a old 3 gallon dixie I got for a tenner a few years back. Good thick ally' fo using on a open fire. The bottom half I did up a couple of days back and I'll do the lid this week. With a cleaning would be perfectly usable as is but I've this pathological hatred of rust. The steel. Workonthe lids too thin to wire wheel. Safely so I'm remo I g the rivets , acid bathing them, polishing them and riveting them back on. I can really clean up the ally as well.



It will save me incuring herselfs wrath by using her jam pans or the big stew pan.

I've until to July to sort out the tallow anyroad. Beef suets nowhere near as good for rush dips as mutton. Pig fat is truely awful and it was the use of that gave rushlights a bad rep,

Cheers for the thoughts on copper but all the ones I've seen in museums and reserve collections been quite substantial wrought or cast iron affairs that can take a lot of heat and retain it.

Atb

Tom

 

[Toddy]

I have a cast iron frying pan. I only ever use it when camping. A lady at one camp came up to me and said that it was a lovely thing, that it was a gypsy pan. I know it as the kind that hung on the crane over the built in fireplace thing.
Anyhow, it'd do a cracking job of use as a grisset too. They can't be that rare, and if you eat meat anyway......

 

[tombear]

There's several illustrations of just that sort of pan being used as a grisset by little old Whelsh ladies demonstrating how they made dips when they were kids inthe books I have. They were still in fairly common usage in rural Wales well after WW2. Rush lights that is.

Unfortunately the sort of pan we are talking about here are very hard to get hold of here as the traveller and gypsy commuities pay top dollar for them in the antique shops to use at get togethers. It seems to be a status thing and the antique shop in Bacup whos owner I know can sell all the cast iron cookware he can get. Saying that he did let me have a smaller hanging girdle with a small lip that came in while we were chatting for about cost which was decent of him.

ATB

Tom

 

[tombear]

Finished cleaning up the 3 gallon camp kettle. It's safe to cook with now.



I was sorting out a almost too heavy bag of old files I'd picked up for the steel before they went into the coal shed, wrapping them in plastic bags so they wouldn't rust to nothing. But three of them were in better condition than I remembered so I restored them. As you do.

Atb

Tom