Well, the truth is that the same way not all dogs are trainable, not all sickles are “peenable” either. In general, the sickles with wider and thinner blades that somehow resemble a little bit the shape of a scythe, like the one in the previous picture, can and should be peened the same way a scythe blade can be peened.
The sickle is one of the most ancient tools, It has and is still being used by every culture. That explains the wide variety of types and styles of them.
Made for harvesting, it precedes even the scythe. While the sickle has a very short handle that forces the “harvester” to work in a squatting position, the scythe appeared later as an innovation with a longer handle, allowing the person to work on an upright position (and less tiring).
We saw on earlier posts that the scythe blade is curved in three ways:
crescent, then around the middle of the blade, it rests on its belly, curved on both along the transversal and along the elongate (length of the blade). But sickles are usually flat, the only curve they have is the crescent and sometimes a little tiny bit elevated at the point. The one in the following illustration, marked with a swan (logo) is made in Austria, weights 280 gr. and is very well adapted to its purpose, which is harvesting. It has one section peened, just under the logo, the rest still not, so you can see the difference.
Obviously, in addition to the peening, we also file the bevel, and hone it with our regular sharpening whet stones. However, since we work in a squatting position, we are very close to obstacles, wires and stones that we might encounter and, therefore, we can see and avoid them. The result is that very rarely do we have considerable damage to our blade and that allows us not to have to hone or sharpen it as frequently as we do a scythe.
Stay sharp my friends.
The Scythe Man 