Dan's Power Scythe

Once upon a time we had a sickle mower.

It was a great alternative to the scythe, as it could cover more ground, more quickly. Not that we’re always in a tearing hurry to get things done, but sometimes expediency is helpful. Unfortunately, this Troy Bilt was discontinued years ago, and replacement parts are impossible to find. Eventually, it stopped running and Dan couldn’t fix it. So that was that. 

Since then, Dan’s done all of the hay cutting, wheat harvesting, and tall pasture grass mowing with his scythe. But we’ve discussed options. Such as a new walk-behind sickle mower (selling for something like $6000), a sickle bar for the tractor (large and also expensive). or better yet, a sickle attachment for our old John Deere garden tractor. It will take attachments, except the small bars are now longer manufactured, and we have searched in vain for a used one. 

What about “inventing” something of our own? We discussed that for years. The best idea we could come up with was to somehow rig a hedge trimmer for sickle work. Here’s Dan’s first experiment.

He attached a hedge trimmer to the snath (handle) of his old American scythe (he prefers to use his European scythe) Here’s it’s first test run.

As you can see, it worked well. It even cuts through clump grass easily! (Something the scythe doesn’t do well). Even so, it needed improvements. For one thing the wooden snath made it even heavier than it already is, and the controls couldn’t be accessed except by bending over (not always convenient.)

Here’s version 2. 

Here’s version 2′s test run.

That went well, so the next test was to put it to work, cutting a small patch of hay. It worked really well. He’s able to catch the cut grass on the trimmer’s blade guard and then lay it down in nice, neat rows.