Handle replaced on Grass Sickle

[macmex]

In an earlier thread Noborigama Sickle (Japanese Billhook) Ron showed me how to replace broken handles on this kind of tool. Shortly afterwards the oldest of my two grass sickle's handles gave out. Well, the other day I finally made time and fixed it. Here's a picture.




It's not perfect but it works great! I went through a couple drill bits trying to put a new nail (rivet) through the metal, to secure the handle. The handle is the other half of the piece Ron originally cut to fix the Noborigama.

[heavyhitterokra]

Nice! I like the looks of that handle better than the first one we built.

[macmex]

I use a hand sickle on almost a daily basis and would not want to be without one, but I should mention that they can be treacherous. Some weeds do not stand well enough to simply swipe the sickle at them and have them fall over, cut off at the base. Most of the time I end up holding on to the top end of what I'm cutting, using my left hand, and then, with the right hand holding the sickle, I cut. This maintains tension on what I'm cutting and makes for a much cleaner cut.

There is a problem with this method, however. If one isn't careful they can cut their left hand. Last fall I did this while using the ko-gama hand sickle and harvesting sweet potatoes. Last week I did it again (same hand, same finger) using a Japanese hand sickle. I can get away with this method most of the time, no problem. But last week I was cutting Bermuda grass at the base of an air conditioning unit, by the side of our house. I wanted to cut in a narrow space and turned the sickle diagonally and... OUCH!




I only posted the picture of after we patched things up. This time it wasn't so bad. It was shallow. But last fall I probably should have gotten stitches.

So my new policy, when using this kind of tool is that I wear a leather glove on my left hand, the hand which is opposite the sickle. 

[heavyhitterokra]

That glove idea is really sage advice!

A guy can put himself out of commission pretty quickly without gloves.

Last year, I was pulling weeds in the berry patch, just hours before needing to be at a wedding out of town. I was in a hurry because I didn't have much time, so I didn't even look for any gloves, I just started pulling weeds bare-handed. It didn't take long before a woody stemmed plant shish-kabobbed my thumb putting a busted woody stem clean through from the last knuckle to just below my thumbnail on the bottom side.

I put myself out of the weed pulling business for nearly a week with that one. I learned really quick that spending an extra few minutes getting geared up with some good leather gloves is a lot better than not being able to finish your job because of an injury.