[TheForge] Knife sharpening

[Chris Caswell]

I believe the European scyth blades are make thinner and are designed to 
be sharpened by hammer and stake. American blades were made thicker and 
designed to be sharpened on a grindstone.  I have two snaths and 4 
blades: one ditch blade and 3 grass blades.  I have managed to sharpen 
the ditch blade so it cuts, but not yet the grass blades,

Chris in VT


On 7/5/2017 2:06 AM, Mike Spencer wrote:
> "J. Petrila" <jlpservicesinc at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> A chef's knife is designed to have the burr straightened using a
>> steel..  This burr will fold over in use and the steel straightens
>> it or stands it back up.. Yes it removes little sections but for the
>> most part it lifts it back into position as its the fine burr that
>> does the cutting..
> I've come across an interesting sharpening thing.  People who do
> competitive hand mowing aren't happy with a stoned edge on their
> scythe blades.  They insist that the edge has to be cold-hammered all
> along its length as the last step in getting the edge they want.
> There are guys to come to competitions to do it for the mowers, have
> polished hammers and special little anvils.  They say that modern
> scythe blades (or at least most of them) aren't suitable for this
> treatement and they prefer wider antique blades or (I might be wrong
> here?) new ones made in Germany or Austria that are like the old ones.
>
> I have both a modern and a wide, hand-forged antique scythe blade but
> I haven't managed to quite get the hammering bit down.  Asked
> questions and watched a guy do it a couple of summers ago.
>
>> Ideally to get the sharpest edge...
> Back when I worked in a hospital, I knew the technicians who sharpened
> microtome blades.  The last step took several hours.  The blade -- 3
> or 4 inches long and maybe 2-1/2" wide -- was put in a clamp at a
> precise angle on the end of a a mechanical arm.  It lowered onto a
> rotating plate glass disk, rather like a very slow, oversized record
> turntable.  The disk was flooded continuously with white rouge and
> water. The machine slowly moved the blade from sided to side on the
> glass and turned it over every minute or two.
>
> - Mike
>