 Not only did the Pennsylvania Dutch or "Deutsch", have good taste in scythe blades, they also had some world-class peening anvils, for the times, to sharpen them with. As proof that there has been a long tradition, of use of the "Austrian" scythe, in this country, these anvils are plentiful in and around Pennsylvania Dutch Pennsylvania. While all the blades seem to have been imported, these scythe anvils were hand-forged here in the USA, over a 100 years ago, out of wrought iron with a bit of hard steel inserted for the anvil face. The Pennsylvania Deutsch called them "Dengelstocks", but in their homeland Germany, the word dengelstock means the stump or base that the anvil is set in for peening, which is called "dengeln", in German. We would classify it as a tall scythe anvil. Tall anvils were usually used on large stumps that the person peening, could sit on as well. the anvil was tall enough for the seated person to get their legs underneath the blade. Most of them seem to be narrow anvils, but I have a seen some examples of wide dengelstocks in my collection. I like to point out that the Pennsylvania Dutch were actually Deutsch or German, because this is a very southern German or Bavarian-style of anvil.
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 Redtenbacher "Schwanen Sense" scythe blade, 75 cm, 65mm mid-width, 509g. The gorgeous scythe blade above, was made for export to the USA, by the Redtenbacher scythe factory, of Austria. Redtenbacher was the largest scythe factory in the world, at the time. It finally closed it's scythe production in 1987, due to the huge decline in demand, with the rise of mechanized agriculture. One of it's factory buildings was turned into a scythe museum; the Geyerhammer Scythe Museum. It has three heavy water-wheels, and shows 400 years of scythe blade making history. It is now popular tourist destination. The Scharnstein castle ruins nearby, also add to it's attraction. See http://www.sensenmuseum.at/
At it's high point, the Redtenbacher Scythe factory produced a 120 different models of scythe blades, and sold to over 90 different counties, including the USA. Each model was produced in 2-6 different lengths. They produced a brand of scythes labeled Schwanen Sense, and several models were exported to the United States, and they were especially popular with the Pennsylvania Dutch here. I know that the model above was produced in 70-75-80cm lengths.  Just got these peening guides back from our local machine shop. I spent many hours over the past couple of weeks, in hardware stores trying out all kinds of combinations of aluminum bars, and nuts, bolts, washers, and spacers, until I finally came up with a combination and design that worked. Then I had a local machine shop cut the aluminum pieces, router out the slots, drill and thread the screw hole, and chamfer all the edges. They did a beautiful job. The finished product is sleek, and works wonderfully.
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