I have a small yard that I need to maintain just enough so that the neighbors don’t think we are slobs. It’s a bit too small to justify a lawn mower, and weedwhackers fling crap everywhere. I personally don’t think every household with a yard really needs motorized tools to take care of their lawn. Many of these tools run off gasoline engines which put out a surprising amount of greenhouse gasses. Battery operated tools are in some ways better, however when batteries eventually fail, they end up getting thrown out which can create its own set of problems.
I wanted to take a step back and try out one of the oldest tools known to man, a sickle. It’s reusable, it can be resharpened for ages, the materials used won’t poison the land, and you can be really selective in what gets cut and what doesn’t. I bought a cheap one off amazon and used it for a while, but i knew I could bring my expertise to the tool to develop something better than anything on the market.
I went through the typical prototyping phases of making cardstock designs to cheaply and quickly test out assumptions. I made a lasercut plywood version to test out different blade angles. I then got some ultra wear resistant tool steel (CPM-15V) to use for a blade, and used Richlite (a really cool paper pulp and resin material) for the handle and shaft. This version was super nice, however after hitting some thick plant stems a few too many times the blade broke off.
Next I redesigned the sickle, and tried out a simple profile out of various materials in different thicknesses in order to find something that was strong, lightweight, impact resistant, weather resistant and stiff. I found that 7075 aluminum struck the perfect balance of all of these properties.
This is still a work in progress project, and the next steps will involve reducing the weight further, adding some cnc machined features, and a few other adjustments. There’s also packaging and marketing materials I want to make. I’m hoping to sell a few of these in early 2024 and if things go well, then launching a kickstarter in either 2024 or 2025.