These are a couple of samples showing two types of grass cutter bar made by the German company Lanz in the early 1950s. Lanz is better known for their hot-bulb oil burning tractors.
The first (above) is unusual to me, the knives are on a different pitch to the guards. I don't understand how that would work, the stroke must be 1.5 times the spacing distance of the guards.
The second (below) is the more common today, the knives center on the guard at each end of the stroke.
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| thanks, Rolf! |
My wild-ass-guess is that the first one is more efficient, in terms of "cuts per stroke" or however they measure it.
ReplyDeleteThis post reminds me that I have an old belt-drive sickle sharpener waiting to be restored. I rescued it from a farm estate sale because it looked really cool, came with two (2!) brand new, in-the-box football-shaped grinding stones, and cost all of 10 bucks. I don't have any sickles to sharpen but I bet it will come in handy for a bit of free-hand grinding one day.