Sickle Bar Sharpening

I picked up an old time sickle bar sharpener from the swap meet at the Jordan, MN Threshing Show this summer. Cleaned it up and finally tried it last night in the garage. Got a couple 6' sickle bars off of a B hay mower from a friend. I was surprised how good it worked and the longer I used it I started making better time. There is a rail behind that slides back and forth and the sickle bar clamp also slides independently on that. So with one clamping you can sharpen 10 knife edges before you would have to re-clamp. The clamp tips into the the beveled stone and you can work your way through the whole edge of the knife doing 2 edges at a time. Pretty unique invention with all the gearing prior to electricity. I would still opt for a disc grinder like we used to use for speed factor.

Looks like it does a nice job. Never saw one of those.

FloydKS wrote: We had a grinding wheel like that on a shop grinder...I would hold the end of the long end of sickle bar when dad was grinding on the other end, in the middle he pretty much controled the whole thing.

 Been there done that many hours.  And you'd get in trouble for swatting mosquitos or black flies, cuz you'd throw him off!

Some of the old ones were made to clamp on the tounge of the horse drawn mowers.

I have to agree, Times have changed, I think these sharpeners used to be common before throw away sections were so cheap.

My Grandpa was a blacksmith he would sharpen many plow lays a year put on new plow points but he also had a machine to sharpen sickles he would do hundreds a year.

we cut many acres of grass for a lot of people  and we cut it so it looked like you mowed your lawn  with a 80r mower .  grandpa always sharpened a knife  when the spare  spare tye wired to the side of the wd  got dull .        so icould change a knife in the feild and keep going instead of riviting on a new section or if it just got dull ,    you could cut alfalfa with about anything that would go back and forth                                                           ..the key to it is good ledger plates and clips

We had a stone like that on a simple grinding arbor my dad bought. He mounted it on an old cream separator stand and hooked it up to a salvaged washing machine motor...he thought he was in heaven as he was used to using a carborundum  stone to sharpen them for years. I would just take a 4" angle grinder to them now :-) I remember he always saved a new sickle for cutting 'wild hay' (grass).

Whether it works or not, whether a sharpened sickle works or not, that is one cool tool that I would love to have as well. Saw one on CL awhile back, let it go. Now that I see how they work, I will snag the next one!

That is a cool piece. I think it would work great on my under serrated sections.

As far as using  sharpened sections I've noticed the same folks that say sharpened sections work well are the same ones that will say how much better a haybind is than a sickle mower to cut hay.A lot more to a section cutting as it should than just being sharp.
Angle,serration,how it matches up to the guard all gets changed when a section  is
sharpened.

Gary, do you mean a disc mower?  Cuz dad would sharpen the sections on the haybine too!  I mean, it was still a "sickle bar". 

Gary Burnett wrote: Tbone95 wrote: Gary, do you mean a disc mower?  Cuz dad would sharpen the sections on the haybine too!  I mean, it was still a "sickle bar".  I mean sickle bar haybinds they won't do anything a sickle bar mower won't do except drag the  hay off the bar which will cover up for a lousy cutting bar. Same goes for those, new sections will out cut sharpened ones, as cheap as new sections are I can't understand anyone sharpening a section.Plus half dull uneven sections puts a strain on all the drive line parts so you'll end up paying way more in the long run using a sub standard cutting knife.

If you have a sickle that needs pretty well all of the sections it's usually a good idea to change all the plates at the same time.