magneticanomaly
Titanium
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2007
- Location
- On Elk Mountain, West Virginia, USA
My son bought himself an Austrian-style scythe. Brought it here for help setting it up. I have a fair bit of experience with American-style scythes, and find them more rugged than the Austrian, but he is spending his own money and learning.
The lit with the tool recommends thinning the edge by peening, which I think carries unacceptable risk of a rippled edge. But maybe the steel is too soft, and needs the work-hardening?
Also recommended is wetting the stone before whetting (sorry, could not resist)
My experience with all types of honing, grinding, stoning, is that merely wet is never a good idea because swarf becomes mud and clogs the stone. Flooded is great, but dry beats merely wet, whether with water or oil, because dry swarf is dust that falls away, or can be blown away, but damp swarf makes mud.
I know what I would do, but do not want to go out on a limb against the advice of the Austrian scythe "experts".
What say you all, fellow keepers of mechanical arcana?
The lit with the tool recommends thinning the edge by peening, which I think carries unacceptable risk of a rippled edge. But maybe the steel is too soft, and needs the work-hardening?
Also recommended is wetting the stone before whetting (sorry, could not resist)
My experience with all types of honing, grinding, stoning, is that merely wet is never a good idea because swarf becomes mud and clogs the stone. Flooded is great, but dry beats merely wet, whether with water or oil, because dry swarf is dust that falls away, or can be blown away, but damp swarf makes mud.
I know what I would do, but do not want to go out on a limb against the advice of the Austrian scythe "experts".
What say you all, fellow keepers of mechanical arcana?