How to Peen an Austrian Scythe Blade.

"Well peened, is half-mowed."

A sharp blade is the key to success in using a scythe. A sharp blade cuts through grass with amazing ease. It enables you to peacefully and effectively harvest your own hay, control weeds, clear pathways, etc. Mowing with a well designed snath and a sharp blade is an enjoyable, aerobic form of exercise.

Mowing with a dull blade results in the all-too-common phenomenon, of compensating for the lack of sharpness, with sheer force and velocity. Violently hacking down vegetation like this is invigorating, at first, but then quickly leads to exhaustion. The obvious conclusion then, is that mowing with a scythe is just too much work, and then the tool, and the "bright idea" of mowing by hand, are abandoned.

In order to effectively utilize the Austrian scythe to it's fullest ecological potential, one must learn how to maintain the sharpness of the blade.

Introduction to Peening a Scythe:

An "Austrian" scythe blade is sharpened by hammering the cutting edge thin on a scythe anvil, and then honing it with a whetstone. If you could see a cross-section of the miniscule cutting edge of a sharp scythe blade, you would see that it forms a very sharp, slightly curved, wedge-shaped point. As you mow with it, that sharp point gradually gets rounded off.

You restore the sharpness of the point, every 5 minutes or so, in the field, by honing the rounded-off edge with a whetstone to re-form the sharp, acute angle of the original cutting edge. This cycle is repeated until the metal of the wedge-shaped point has been worn back (by the repetition of mowing and honing), to where the metal is so thick that the whetstone can no longer effectively re-form the sharp, acute angle of the cutting edge.

At this time the metal at the edge must be thinned back out, with a hammer and anvil, until it’s thin enough for the whetstone to be effective again. The process of hammering the edge of the scythe blade thin is called peening.

The Peening Jig vs. Narrow Anvil:

Originally all scythe blades were peened on a wide or flat anvil and with a cross-peen hammer. This required great skill and accuracy. Later it was found to be easier to turn the blade over and to place the edge on a "cross-peen" (a.k.a. narrow) anvil, and to then hit it with a wide-faced hammer. The accuracy then comes more from holding the edge steady on the anvil in the correct position, not so much from the hammer strike. Later on, devices such as a peening jig, were invented to make peening easier for novices.

The peening jig enables a beginner to sharpen a scythe blade reasonably well, without ruining their scythe blade with uneven hammering. However, a peening jig will not get a blade as sharp as free-hand peening, because the metal of the cutting edge is drawn out against the center post of the jig. It's sharpness will be limited by that.

If you look at other websites, you'll see that they all recommend a peening jig. A peening jig is definitely easier to learn to use than peening with a cross-peen hammer on a wide anvil! A peening jig is also easier to use than peening with the commonly available, unhardened, 250g, narrow anvils produced in the Czech Republic, that are flat across the top. The small size makes them ackward to use.

The softer steel makes the blade bounce around a lot, making it difficult to keep the blade in place (a cheap hammer doesn't help either!), and the flatness of the narrow anvil face easily results in an unevenly, and over-peened edge. Rounding off the anvil face with a mill file will help, but they're still too small and not hard enough.

In my opinion and experience, peening with a high quality narrow anvil and a high quality scythe hammer, such as the ones made by the Picard Company of Germany, are as easy to learn to peen with, as using a peening jig.

Provided that you have good instruction and some skill with a hammer. If you can hammer a brad nail into some nice custom moulding, or to nail a bee-hive frame together, without bending the nail or dinging the wood, you can probably handle peening on a high quality narrow anvil.

The hammering skill required for a peening jig is similar to slowly and steadily pounding a nail into a stud.

Since discovering how much easier it is too use these higher quality Picard hammer and anvil sets, I no longer carry peening jigs, and teach my students how to use a narrow anvil right from the start. For the same price as a good peening jig, you can buy a Picard hammer and anvil and be set for life and pass the tools on to the next generation.

Your scythe blade will also be much sharper, and as a result, you will be able to mow more grass.

To order my peening kit, consisting of a Picard scythe hammer and anvil, a rust-eraser sandblock, and a 10 page instruction manual, contact me at:

Mystic Prairie Eco-Farm & Scythe Shop
1900 Johnson St.
Wilson, WI 54027
715-772-4642

eMail

Botan Anderson

Current Events and Announcements

Our duck eggs are available at the Traditional Foods Warehouse in Mpls. at 302 W.61st Street, ph. 612-861-0097. See http://web.me.com/willwinter/traditionalfoodsmn.mac.com/Welcome.html for directions and more info about this exciting new method of food distribution. You have to be a member to shop there, but it's easy to join and it's a worthy cause; REAL FOOD!

Our scythe business has outgrown our farm website and is transitioning to www.onescytherevolution.com . You can order from either website.

May 1st & 2nd, 2010, 10-5pm - We will be in the Creative Drive at the Silver Bison Ranch in Baldwin, WI, selling framed farm photos and cards. I'll have some scythes with me also. For more info see www.thecreativedrive.com

May 16th, 2010 - Basic Scythe Workshop at Mystic Prairie Eco-Farm. Noon-5pm. Learn how to set up your scythe, and how to mow, and hone in the field. Peening will be demonstrated and de-mystified.

May 30th, 2010, 8-4pm - Adv. Scythe Workshop/ Scythe Instructor training.
There's a growing demand for scythe instructors, but very few people are knowledgeable enough to teach much about it. This workshop will give you more of the in-depth knowledge that you will need to manage a scythe-based farm, and to help "spread the word" and teach Beginner's Scythe Workshops. Prerequisites: My Basic Workshop and/or some accomplished mowing and peening experience. Study the www.onescytherevolution.com site and also my peeening manual before the workshop.

If you're surfing the web, check out our scythe and farm videos at our YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/Scythesman8, especially my playlist on harvesting grains. Also our new website at www.onescytherevolution.com . If you're on Facebook, become a fan of Mystic Prairie Eco-Farm.