I like peening for all sorts of reasons but one of my favourite aspects is the amazing rhythms which are created by several people peening scythes together. The hammering comes in and out of sync in a way I find really exciting. At lunchtime today Chris commented that it reminds him of the music of Steve Reich. I’d never heard of it before but have been listening mesmerised while I blog. Here is Evelyn Glennie performing ‘Clapping Music’ which is really reminiscent of peening. Listen while you read about the workshop.
Another great group of folk made for a fun and interesting day for this year’s scythe peening course. I was especially pleased that Jim and Chris came up from Cambridge and Hampshire respectively for the course.
We began with a discussion of why peening is important and how to judge when your scythe is in need of peening. Then it was on to practicals with a 
look at getting the setup right and choosing tools, particularly this year with respect to peening hammers which I’ve been exploring during the summer. Most people were familiar with the jig but had struggled with this turning up the edge of the blade. It’s a common problem which is easy to solve so we were able to speed through that and get on to the real fun and intrigue of freehand peening with the anvil. In a beginner’s mowing course there isn’t enough time to teach all the ins and outs of peening (it’s a lot to fit into one day on it’s own) and there’s really only so much you can get from reading a book or even watching a video. There were several ‘eureka’ moments 
during the day when I explained something that suddenly clicked the pieces into place such as the benefits of a cut-down hammer and getting the lighting right. I was learning too, techniques for corrective treatment for curled-over edges and coping with scythe blade edges which had become very thick through years of not peening. We made great progress through the day and everyone’s technique improved a huge amount, ready to go away and put in the practice with the foundation of the techniques and knowledge.
We finished the day with some sharpening with whetstones. Once your peening is good this isn’t necessary but if you can still see light reflecting up off the scythe edge then it’s not sharp and some work with the whetstone is needed. That’s especially true with the jig but often forgotten or not mentioned when people demonstrate it’s use.
In all, a great day that passed in a flash, thanks to all who made it happen.
Our group of hay-tourists certainly drew plenty of attention from the local media. During the week we were photographed and interviewed by two newspapers and filmed by a local news station, an independent film-maker working with the festival organisers and Duna TV from Bucharest. All good publicity for the event and it’s aims to increase the number of people managing their haymeadows in this area.
I’ve been sent this poem by Neil Diment, community officer for the 
Nearly everything I make is designed to be used, whether it’s a chair, spoon, bowl or rake. I especially like it when someone meets me at a show and tells me how they’ve been using something they’ve bought from me. I gave this birch serving spoon to my friends Charlie & Alison at the end of last year and they tell me it’s been in daily use ever since for everything from stirring soup, cooking curries to serving up salad. Woodenware really starts to come alive through use, developing a patina and character that you really can’t achieve any other way and improving all the time.
I’ve been in the Transylvania region of Romania taking part in an International Haymaking Festival. During the week we called in to visit Viktor-bacsi (an honorific for older people translated for us as “Uncle Viktor”) who, despite ill health makes and repairs all the wooden hayrakes for the area – about 50 each winter. Viktor-bacsi uses 3 different species for his rakes: hazel for the stail, mountain maple for the heads and ash for the tines. Everything is cleft and shaped by hand for a combination of strength and lightness. It was wonderful too see him working and the simple but ingenious devices he had made for holding the various parts while shaping them with plane, knife and saw.
Each rake has 19 tines, all laboriously shaped by hand first into a long square taper and then a shouldered tenon is handcarved onto one end and the other end rounded with a knife. I sat with him in his small workshop and carved a few tines with him. The wood is all dried before assembly so the tenon is simply made to a push fit into the head – the shoulder stops it pushing further through and on top of the head Viktor-bacsi leaves 2mm of temon protruding which he peens over like a rivet head to prevent the tine falling out. We were shown how the split stail is fitted to the head and his method for getting the head straight and balanced. A lovely little touch are two bands of unstripped bark left on the stail just below the split as decoration.
During our haymaking, I worked with one of the rakes which has seen 20 summers of work. In that time the stail has been polished smooth by the hands that held it and the tines have been worn away to a quarter of their original length yet only one has broken in that time. A tool like this almost knows how to do the work itself and it was an honour to be using it.
While the rest of the sports media was focussed on the World Athletics Championships in Daegu, South Korea I was making my own debut representing my country on the international sports stage. This was the first Scythe Mowing Competition in Gyimes, Transylvania organised by Attila Sarig as part of the Haymaking Festival. The aim was to draw attention among the local population of our presence in the village and show the work of mowing with a scythe can be more than just hard work.
The local newspapers and a tv cameraman turned out for the competition which included competitors from Romania, England, Scotland, Austria and Norway.
This was a simple sprint race, downhill through a light sward of second-cut grass so times were fast and I was knocked out in my heat by the meadow owner who was kind enough to say he’d never worked so hard.. Representing the two ends of the age spectrum were Norby Antal, aged 13 and ‘Aunt Lizzie’ aged 78 who mowed with ease and style before heading back to the real work of tending her vegetable garden.
In the end the final came down to a clash between Julian Holbrook of Scotland and Szilveszter Oltean, a local farmer who just pipped Julian to the line and took away a new scythe as his prize. We found out later that Szilveszter is also the champion for the local sport of downhill sledging, something we may be returning to Tryansylvania to try our luck at.
Due to a clash with the second round of filming for Anna K, I’ve moved the date of my ‘Improve your peening’ course to Saturday 24th September. Still only £45 to learn the why’s and wherefore’s of hammering your scythe blade to achieve a fine edge.
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