All About Pocket Knives

I don't know if I have posted this before but I will now put it up for your,"qualified speculation" and,"S.W.A.G.'s".
I got it out today and cleaned up the handle and blade a bit to see if I could see any markings on it(there are not).
I initially thought it might be a fleam for bleeding large animals.A couple of features kind of contradict that premise. First of all there is no real point to the blade and it does not appear that there ever was. The blade is beveled on one side only and in the bevels are cut what look like teeth parallel to the handle.
Prior to cleaning the handle appeared that it might have been covered with blood on numerous occasions which had led to the fleam theory. The blade is also corroded in the same fashion as one having been covered with blood and not cleaned.
So here it is for your perusal. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I’ve seen that blade before. It looks like one of the teeth on a combine bean head. By chance it didn’t come from Europe did it originally?

That cutter blade is what we called a "sickle section" when I was a kid. They were used on the reciprocating sickles on everything from old fashioned grain binders to hay mowers to combines. The assembly shown could have very easily been home made and would be useful for cutting the twine on grain bundles or hay bales.

I agree. It's a knife section out of a sickle bar. I've seen them used like that to make corn knives. They were used to cut stalks of corn back before mechanical harvesting.

That's a knife off of a hay mower bar. The knifes have two holes on the unsharpened side for peening rivots into the bar that slides between the guards. One end of the bar hooks to a rod connected to a belt driven wheel and the belt loops around another wheel that is bolted to a power shaft that runs off the tractor's P.T.O.

One of those knives took the tip of my right index finger off when I was 10 years old. It happened so fast I didn't even feel it. Not my pictures, provided for illustration. It's like a big hedge trimmer.

Has others have stated it is a sickle bar section from a piece of farm equipment. I would venture a guess that someone made it to cut twine off of square bales of hay.

peanut740 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 21, 2020 1:54 am Has others have stated it is a sickle bar section from a piece of farm equipment. I would venture a guess that someone made it to cut twine off of square bales of hay.

Posted it on another forum and that was the consensus that it was for cutting twine from hay bales.Thanks for the replies.

Used one everyday feeding cows on the ranch I worked on at Moran, Wy. to cut twine off of small square bales. (idiot cubes) lol. Ours were home made affairs using a sickle section and a wooden handle off of a broken pitch fork. Terry