Small sickle

[Toddy]

I'm going to transfer a few post across to this new thread from one which had become kind of tangled.

Xylaria began the conversation
" ....and have now decided the most disirable edged tool for a forager is a hand scythe, and I want one."

to which I replied,

I want one shaped like this little bronze one

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f203/seamstimeless/DSCF0030.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f203/seamstimeless/KingsofBling05-03-200716-33-37.jpg


It's an ideal tool for not only gathering rushes/ reeds & grasses but for howking nettles and brambles as well as fungi.

cheers,
Toddy

To which Jojo replied

"Toddy, what if I made you a steel blade (free) to the same shape and you could test it and let us all know what its like? I would need perhaps an outline of the thing for size? It would not be as nice as the bronze but good enough to play and test with it.

I am waiting for some steel so could add it to what I am making."

Xylaria replied,
"Now thats a lovely looking tool.
I have only tried a 90` scythe once before, it was a pakistan hemp scythe my landlady lent us to do the garden when I was a student. It wasn't quite the full grim reaper, but it took some getting used to. I was thinking of 180` scythe but the curve is similar to your lovely bronze. It will have no usable point but maybe lanyard on the end of the blade so a cross bar can attached to turn it into a skin scraper and herb chopper.

I am thinking of carving one out wood, and then giving it to a hobby maker to make me a metal one. I remember chopping down nettles with cumun[(sp?) pron. cum awn] hurley (shinty) bat] when was a child, there is a urban legend that says that they can cleanly take the top off a mans head if wielded wrong. So I want to see if wooden tools can have a usable edge, or it is just celtic stories that the various hockeys are war games."

Spamel posted a link to a rice scythe and John Fenna commented along the lines that hockey *is* a war game and he has the scars to prove this

The comments thereafter run,

Toddy
"It (the rice scythe) looks like a tool for a specific task, doesn't it? neat though.

The crescent shaped sickle seemed to have all the advantages of a small billhook, the curve meant that I could *pull* brambles, nettles and rushes clear so that they could be cut free but I could also (and did) use it like a small hand scythe (we call it a heuk around here) to cut grain. I also had a go at cutting off apples and bunches of elderberries from the trees with it and it was excellent for that too. A colleague who cleans up a beach on a regular basis eyed it up too, reckoning it would be a great tool for beachcombing."


Jojo

I thought it would also be an very interesting project to make. Do you by any chance have a drawing or could you get one? So that I would have some proper dimensions to work from? I have 2mm 01 tool steel, I am getting some 3mm and some 5mm. Would it need to be hardened and sharpened or left unhardened and so on. Depending on the size, I may be able to make one out of some bronze I have got, but that is a may be, I am not sure what type of bronze it is. Also, would it need to be a single bevel, ,like a chisel edge or double edge like a scandi.

Toddy
"Basically the blade tapers across it's with, just like a good billhook does, but I've no idea if this is necessary if it's made with steel or not. It had a single bevel though and the back was flat. The bronze had been poured into an open mould.
I'll see what I can do about resolving those photos a bit more."

and after all that, let's see what comes of it all

Xylaria I can send you a bit of Hornbeam if you'd like to try carving it out of that.
I'll see if I can find out who cast the one in the artifacts box.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Toddy]

Spamel

"It would be useful for gathering thatching material if making a small fixed camp too. I'd like to see what is made, a good robust tool would be very handy indeed."

Good point!

cheers,
Toddy

 

[penvisser]

this sounds like an interesting topic!

Penvisser

 

[Jared]

http://www.dick.biz has a selection of smaller sickles.

Their bronze herb sickle is on the expensive side though.. 307,02 EUR


Still think a billhook, like a small sparhook, would be better, and could use cutting wood.

Eg. http://www.woodsmithstore.co.uk/shop/Products/Tools/Billhooks/Product/Morris+Spar+Hook/

 

[Toddy]

I have a billhook, and I use it, it's an excellent tool, but it's big and heavy.
The sickle is small enough to slip in my jacket pocket; think of it more like a foraging/ collecting tool than a small axe.
The billhook is work to use properly, this little sickle was just like an extension of my hand and arm.

Nice link, thank you, but as you said, a bit expensive.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[jojo]

I have just noticed that the little sickle is sitting on an A4 piece of paper, that gives me the approximate scale, so the blade is about 4" to 4 1/4", the camera was pretty much right above it, there does not seem to have too much distortion . I'll make a pattern based on that to see what is feels like. Better get ready to go to work now

 

[pothunter]

This may be of interest to you, when I first used scythes and sickles I had no instruction and it was hard work. An old Ukrainian gentleman took pity on me and showed me how he had used a sickle in his youth.

He cut a forked hazel stick, one fork about 18" long and the other about 4", holding the longer fork he pulled vegetation towards him and then cut away from his body as though throwing his arm wide.
This archived three things:
1. the vegetation was held tightly in the fork of the stick making it easier to cut.
2. very much safer to have the blade facing away
3. vegetation when cut remained in small bundles

I hope you can understand my description.

Pothunter.

 

[BorderReiver]

What about something like This Toddy?

There are various makes in a variety of sizes.

 

[Chopper]

How about one of these ??

http://www.thekhukurihouse.com/catalog/product.php?id=313036fecc3

Any male would run a mile if confronted by one. :yikes: :yikes: :yikes:

 

[Ratbag]

I have a billhook, and I use it, it's an excellent tool, but it's big and heavy.
The sickle is small enough to slip in my jacket pocket; think of it more like a foraging/ collecting tool than a small axe.
The billhook is work to use properly, this little sickle was just like an extension of my hand and arm.

Nice link, thank you, but as you said, a bit expensive.

cheers,
Toddy

Just saw this on Axminster:

http://www.axminster.co.uk/product-Harima-Japanese-Gardeners-Sickle-480145.htm

and wondered if it might fit the bill...?

Rat

 

[nickg]

My contribution

a cleaned up jpeg and an outline sketch of the sickle. print fitted to a full piece of A4 will be about full size (assuming the paper it was on was A4).

The handle seems to be L shaped at the heel projecting straight up on the picture, do you remember how far up the projection was Toddy?

I would love to hear a little more history of the piece - It looks original or a very good repro - it that correct?

Cheers
Nick

 

[Toddy]

My contribution..............

The handle seems to be L shaped at the heel projecting straight up on the picture, do you remember how far up the projection was Toddy?

I would love to hear a little more history of the piece - It looks original or a very good repro - it that correct?

Cheers
Nick

Nice One That makes thing so much clearer.
The entire depth of the *hook* at the end of the handle, including the handle, was only about two inches.

I sometimes work for Historic Scotland's Education Service. The sickle was part of an artifacts handling box created for a new activity conceived by Ian Deveney of Battlescarweb to fit in with the Highland Year of Culture. The then Education Officer for the Northern region, based at Fort George, Tricia Weekes, commissioned reconstructions of appropriate pieces found in Scottish sites from the Bronze and Iron Ages. The activity, finally called, "The Kings of Bling" was in two parts.
To try and actively engage the local schoolchildren in "their" local surviving historical sites, and to give a living history hands on set of activities in their school.
To do this Ian took them to a local site and worked there with them for a morning and I set up a virtual roundhouse interior in the school complete with firemaking, threshing grain, quernstone, breadmaking, pottery, spinning, stone polishing and a pump drill as well as native plant uses, costume, handling indigenous animal skins from seal to wolf and the artifacts box full of the most wonderful items, the Bling, and worked with the children for the other half of their day.

The box contained trays holding a sequence of bronze axes, a bronze sword, and an incredible armband, a gold torc, a jet necklace, jewellery making tools, a polished bronze mirror, an iron cloak pin, etc as well as the raw materials.
We discussed trade and trading networks, art and warfare, status and roles in society, domestic skills and everyday duties, natural resources, buildings, hunting......it was (is) an incredibly wide ranging activity and we worked right across Higland Region with it, from Skye to Moray.

The sickle is part of the kit, and I loved it, I thought it the most excellent tool.
I'm trying to find out who cast the re-construction....I know I have the details somewhere.
cheers,
Toddy

 

[jojo]

I made a pattern and a very rough handle today at work

unfortunately the pics are carp I'll try to get better ones tomorrow

I have assumed the sheet of paper was A4, as otherwise the sickle would have been rather large!

I have also put an L shape to the end of the handle.

The blade should be fairly easy to make, 2 mm would be probably plenty strong enough although the cutting edge may be a little easy to damage so perhaps i'll use 3mm.

I can make the sickle either right or left handed. I think the blade would be easier to use with a double bevel lie a knife rather than a chisel edge.

Obviously the steel blade would not look as nice as the bronze one, but I think it would make a really useful tool, it would look nicer with a natural branch handle rather than a carved one.

Any thoughts?

I just looked at the new pics again, does the blade cut on the outside as well as on the inside of the curve? I can't imagine it would, that would make it quite a dangerous tool?

 

[KIMBOKO]

Am I wrong in thinking that a sickle has a serated, saw like edge and is used in a sawing manner to cut a bunch of vegetation held in a hand. But a scythe has a clean sharp edge used with a sweeping motion to cut mainly grasses. A bill hook similarly has a clean sharp edge but is usually used with a chopping motion for cutting up to coppice sized wood. So at the extemes (sickle to cut wood or billhook to cut grass) they are not necessarily interchangeable tools.

 

[Jared]

Am I wrong in thinking that a sickle has a serated, saw like edge and is used in a sawing manner to cut a bunch of vegetation held in a hand. But a scythe has a clean sharp edge used with a sweeping motion to cut mainly grasses. A bill hook similarly has a clean sharp edge but is usually used with a chopping motion for cutting up to coppice sized wood. So at the extemes (sickle to cut wood or billhook to cut grass) they are not necessarily interchangeable tools.

Its true that you need a serations for cutting grass and the like, but the difference between the edges is only created by using different sharpening stones.

Cigar stone for cutting grass and a canoe stone for woody vegetation.

 

[Toddy]

Tbh I've never seen a serrated sickle except for a first dynasty Egyptian one made from microliths which had been resin set into a wooden handle.
The bronze one ( Jojo your wooden copy looks most excellent ) certainly wasn't and I used it for grain, grass and rushes and it worked fine.

None of the grass heuks had any serragtions either, they were just sharpened with a round stone. No idea how you'd sharpen a toothed thing in a field

cheers,
Toddy

 

[nickg]

Im sure that I saw some middle eastern flint 'sickles' in the british museum. These of course had a serrated edge from bieng knapped. I wonder if they would be any more effective for that. Cant think of a good practical way to make a smooth edged flint sickle.

Cheers
Nick

 

[pothunter]

I have used a sickle for green grass and found that using the method that I earlier described it worked well the secret is in folding the grass in the 'v' of the fork making a tight bundle and it cuts well. Unrestrained grass is hard work as the sickle starts to bind in the grass very early in the cutting stroke making it hard work.

I have seen scythes with wavy cutting edges, these have a very regular pattern and I guess a pitch of about 4", must be for a specific purpose, possibly water weed in mill ponds.

Pothunter.

 

[Templar]

Hi all

This tool looks a lot like a japanese Ko-Gama used for gardening and easily found in top end gardening stores ($9-$12USD(google) the traditional lenght for the handle is about 12inch but cah be cut down if needed, blade is about 5.5inch long... Gee I spent way too long studying Japanese feudal history...

http://tinyurl.com/2pgj5w

Cheers,

Karl

(no link to website, just used as example)

 

[Jared]

Tbh I've never seen a serrated sickle except for a first dynasty Egyptian one made from microliths which had been resin set into a wooden handle.
The bronze one ( Jojo your wooden copy looks most excellent ) certainly wasn't and I used it for grain, grass and rushes and it worked fine.

None of the grass heuks had any serragtions either, they were just sharpened with a round stone. No idea how you'd sharpen a toothed thing in a field

cheers,
Toddy

Yeah, the cigar stone creates microscopic serrations which is better for cutting grass.