I used a Kaiser blade a bit when I was in my young-middle teenage years to clear out briar patches and suckers coming up off ground level stumps. works purety good as long as you don't need to cut parallel with the ground. On second thought, it WILL cut parallel with the ground but you need to take small bites, and not use the whole length of the blade (or at least I did).

I picked up one of these are a local yard sale 2-3 years ago from an old timer who used it all the time in his youth. Must of been in is late 80's. I saw it way up on the wall of his barn and said "Hey, how about that old thing". He says "You want that boy?" Boy? With gray hair I'm hardly a boy, but then he says "$20" and I say "Sold!" Nice ages wood (looks like hickory) and a couple of well-used rusty but [censored] sharp blades.

Beautiful piece of history that is more fun than a barrel full of INFI (well maybe not)! Now, I'm not proficient with it, but it is pretty easy (and did I mention FUN) once you get in the groove to clear long grass/weeds and light brush. I'll have to take some pics.

Very cool topic. I guess the effectiveness of these blades is where the legend of the grim reaper comes from.

That girl has a really smooth technique probably accounting for your effectiveness. I would love to try one but I do not think my 1/8 acre (a guess) suburban home is the best place to use one.

i always thought the grim reaper was using one because he is a harvester of souls

Yeah, but it would be more than worth all the gossip you'd be creating among the soccer moms! When I'm out on the road in front of my house whacking away at the weeds with it, I get some pretty strange looks from the passerbys. THAT is half the fun... shaking up the sheeple! Hmmmm, maybe I should get me a long dark hooded robe for Halloween.

From everything I have read the "American made scythe blades" are not at all comparable to the ones that were/are made in Austria and Germany. If you look at the blades on the sites I posted above you should be able to see some major differences between these scythe blades and what has typically been used in this country. In addition to the construction of the blades there is an "art" to sharpening a scythe blade. The masters of this art insist that one must peen the edge of the blade before sharpening, to get the required cutting surface. The issue is more than how sharp the blades are. Peening causes a slight curve and some other dynamics in the edge that optimize cutting efficiency.

Better scythes are designed to be pulled across (shearing) the material they are cutting instead of chopping or hacking at it. To be graphic, kind of like we might see a throat being "slit" in a horror flick. The better blades also excel at picking up severed material and depositing it at the end of the swing range in a neat continuous mound. As demonstrated in the video above, there is more technique and leverage involved than strength.

Cheers,

Mick

When i used to survey with my daddy in law we called the Kaiser blade a
Bush hook. A wicked chopper until you tried to chop a hedge apple tree.
Hedge apple is really an Osage Orange tree. Thats what they used to make
oxen yokes out of.The first hit and your arms feel like 110 voltage just just barely got ya.Another few stings and then you might be into the wood! The blades on the bush hook could bend in half but didnt
hold an edge long. No biggie.. The handle was 48 inches long.!!
Rare back and swing and it was down far enough to see with a survey
instrument. Thats my memories of the Kaiser Blade/ Bush Hook.

I guess since this thread has evolved into a yard tool disscussion, I just received a pole saw that I ordered from Amazon.com. It's a Fiskars 9301 Power-Lever 14-Foot Tree Pruner, and I used it to trim back some branches that were touching the roof and brushing again my gutters. I debated about whether to get it, or a chainsaw on a pole.

Since I don't plan to trim my trees very often, I decided the manual pole saw would be sufficient, and I'm quite happy with the Fiskars. It's significantly lighter than some I looked at from Lowe's, and the Woodzig blade (though made in China rather than Finland or the US) is an aggressive cutter. It was a lot easier to use than what the salesperson at Lowe's described; I have no doubt that I made a good decision to order the Fiskars rather than what they had.