Thread: To Scythe or not to scythe...

Originally Posted by pcdad

how do I get the cactus whiskers effectively?

you might find some help in this thread http://straightrazorpalace.com/shavi...tus-hairs.html

I've been experimenting with scything myself in the last couple of weeks (I might have seen it in one of Jockey's videos?). It seems to be particularly effective in the hollows of my neck when I open the scales out to line up with the blade and pivot ATG from the center/adams apple area of my neck outward, against well-stretched skin, if that makes any sense. Still far from 1-pass BBS, but definitely getting smoother.

What exactly are "cactus hairs?"

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

you might find some help in this thread http://straightrazorpalace.com/shavi...tus-hairs.html

These are two diagrams I did for a friend of mine. Just like nun2sharp said, it is like a windshield wiper. You can pivot at the fingers or the wrist.

If you want to call that scything because it's a pivoting motion, OK, but that is not remotely close to how a scythe actually cuts. That stroke completely misses the point of the huge efficiently improvement that resulted from the scythe.

If you doubt me, watch the video again. The blade approaches the grass in what the Wiki describes as a guillotine stroke, at an extremely low angle. The angle of approach is the reason for the efficiency of the cut. The edge of the blade does not cut straight through the stem, the blade moves along its length as it passes through the stem. (Clearly I'm going to have to make a diagram.)

That diagram more accurately depicts a machete motion, with the blade simply pivoting from the wrist. To use the earlier analogy from the Wiki, that is simply an arcing axe stroke. There is barely any cutting improvement in that stroke relative to a straight stroke.

Easy way to say
think about slicing tomatoes. forward and backward.
Usually is barber shaves you will use forward motion.
if you are shaving yourself most face will get backward motion except under the chin area.Some places will need forward motion .

Yup, I've tried to describe it as similar to slicing tomatoes and others have objected.

Below is a very poor depiction of the blade's start and finish position relative to a single stalk of straw, or a single whisker. This is how a scythe cuts and this is how I consider a shaving scything stroke should cut. The arrow is just a reference point on the blade.

Originally Posted by Utopian

If you want to call that scything because it's a pivoting motion, OK, but that is not remotely close to how a scythe actually cuts. That stroke completely misses the point of the huge efficiently improvement that resulted from the scythe.

If you doubt me, watch the video again. The blade approaches the grass in what the Wiki describes as a guillotine stroke, at an extremely low angle. The angle of approach is the reason for the efficiency of the cut. The edge of the blade does not cut straight through the stem, the blade moves along its length as it passes through the stem. (Clearly I'm going to have to make a diagram.)

That diagram more accurately depicts a machete motion, with the blade simply pivoting from the wrist. To use the earlier analogy from the Wiki, that is simply an arcing axe stroke. There is barely any cutting improvement in that stroke relative to a straight stroke.

Ok - if the vocabulary is hanging this up - call it whatever you want. This is an arcing motion about a pivot point - either at the finger tips or at the wrist.

So lets just called it an arc cut instead of a scythe cut. So we would have:

1. Straight cut - refers to the garden variety straight pass motion that is in a continuous straight line and the edge perpendicular to a whisker. It works for WTG, XTG and ATG.

2. Shearing cut (also called the guillotine cut) - refers to a straight pass motion that is in a continuous straight line and the edge is at some angle to the whisker - either heel trailing toe or toe trailing heel. It works for WTG, XTG and ATG.

3. Arc cut - refers to any cut that where the toe sweeps through an arc about an arbitrary pivot point - such as the fingertips or the wrist. It seems that WTG, XTG and ATG don't really apply with this cut because by the very nature of the sweep you could go through all three during the stroke.

Can we agree on this?

I have thought the scythe was simply a guillotine-like cut combined with a subdued pivoting motion. Maybe I will never know what it really is until I pick up a scythe for myself and learn to use it

In the meantime I guess I will just have to keep shaving and discovering more efficient strokes

Jump to about 06:40 in this video.

Barber straight razor demonstration / tutorial shave