And It look like this.

Work for me

It can be adjusted , maybe thicker choping board can be used for this purpose instead of 1 inch thick pine.

I figure for a beginner or novice that does not have the skills yet or maybe just not the tooling to move large material to make a hot cut this idea could come in handy. No forging all just stock removal. Entirely made with a 4" angle grinder. 

Yes my anvil has a few dings ad chisel marks but it is a Mousehole that is 150 years old though. 

I forged this hot cut hardy out of leaf spring, and while using it today, the cutting edge started chipping and then suddenly the shank and the rest of it cracked. Attached are pictures of the grain. I don't know if that was the problem, or if there could have been microfractures, or if the way that I got it to fit in the hardy hole (heating it up and hitting it hard) is what led to it's demise.

It was also interesting, the top kept deforming, even though I had quenched it in water, and then it cracked. It seemed like it was too soft, and then too hard. I am only a beginner, especially when it comes to heat treating.

i have an idea for shaping the metal for leaves, flower ect...

i am going to make a tool that goes in the hardy hole.  It will be a two-inch square piece that will be a cut off block.  on its 4 sides i was going to weld several different forms.  the first side has a ring on it for shaping leaf and to be used as a cupping tool, second side has two square pieces on their angles to form a deep v groove for making the center of leaf, third side will have two round bars side by side with a deep v groove between them.  and the last side will have a rectangle block with several round swage grooves in it from 1/8 up to 1 inch and a 60 degree. seems like this combination would be perfect for shaping any kind of form like leaves and flower on the anvil.  I have only seen something similar, but it just had two different size rings for leaf and cupping on the anvil. anyone seen anything like this? I'm wondering if this is a terrible idea or if it will be extremely useful? does this seem like it would be useful in the shop or are there some problems with it that I can't imagine?  would I better off with a different shape on one of the side?

Ignoring the torn up anvil (it was cheap as dirt during the plague and rings like a bell) here's the result of my hot cut. Pretty satisfied with it, but I'm not sure about the little burr on it. Came out worse on the other piece, but I just ground it off after a ridiculous attempt at hot-filing it off (fuel costs too much for *that*). Any way to avoid the burr?

Or is not worrying about it and just having my apprentice grind this off with the belt sander the best course of action?

Here is what i came out like, not too bad.

I did a vid about it. I still haven't strapped my anvil down yet but doesn't move that much with downward strikes. It is actually recessed in the stump about an inch. Anyway it came out OK not really like I intended.

Here's the video that got me thinking about it.

Looking back, I could have saved myself hours of work and wound up with a better tool by just hunting down the appropriate sized stock. I’m hard headed though and was bound and determined to “make it work.” 

The cold shut was caused by a fish lip that I didn’t catch in time. When I tried to correct it, it folded over instead of flattening out. I was hoping that it had happened early enough in the forging process to not wind up on the cutting edge. I know better now. I’m going to pick up a HF bench grinder tomorrow (people around here on FB market place, Craigslist, etc want new prices for “antique grinders”) and try and grind out the shut. It’s just too deep for me to reasonably get out with a file. 

I was able to get a nice radius on the edge though and managed to shape it enough while forging that sharpening it with a file wasn’t unbearable. It also fits snugly in the hardy without being so tight that I will have to beat it out. 

If it fails, I’m not going to be heart broken. I learned a lot and that is my main goal right now. I’m going to be cutting small stock with it though so I think it will be ok. 
 

I understand the theory of a tapered shank with no shoulders wedging securely in the hardy hole, but mine gets jammed in there pretty good, especially when I've been cutting heavy stock (e.g., 1-3/16" torsion bar). Sometimes I have to give it a good whack from below with a hammer to get it out again.

So, my question is, is this normal? Or did I make my taper too gradual and/or not thick enough at the top?

Here are the ones I use on a regular basis and a combination hardie I made for a friend

The couple of issues I had along the road were miniscule, but will need to be sorted out as I make more top tools or hammers. 

My initial punch bent and went a bit wonkie on me. So I used a different slot punch made from coil spring steel to finish the job. Then went back to the initial punch to just drift the eye a little bigger so as to be able to fit my hammer eye drift in the hole. (Which straightened the buggered punch! So now it just needs a new heat treat and re dressing, then it will be back to new.) 

The only other issue I had with this project came in the form of my eye hole being askewand not perfectly parallel with the bit. (Not hugely off but enough to make me want to do it better) I was able to correct this during the handling of the tool.

As always thanks for checking it out, and I'm always happy to hear thoughts on how to avoid common issues. Thanks guys. Enjoy.

As always, feed back and thoughts to chew on are always welcome and appreciated.  

I have a 1/2” thick bush hog blade that is medium carbon steel. I was wondering if making a “T” shape where the narrow part of the T could fit diagonally across the hardy socket would be workable. The “T” would form a shoulder across the anvil face with the top of the “T” being the working surface.  Pictures below. 

Given how small this anvil is and the dimensions around the hardy hole, I am leery to doing any kind of serious hot fitting of the hardy. So I would thing I would get it really close to shape via forging/grinding/filing and then just do some light strikes to get it to square up and fit. 
 

I was not planning on upsetting the tool stem enough to fill the hardy hole - so it would be locked in across the diagonal. My hardy hole is 15/16” and the stock is 1/2” (minus some rust...) - so there is decent contact against the hardy walls.  Hoping that if I am just doing downward blows on a small anvil that this would be enough to get some work done. 

Thoughts?  Obviously not “best practice” - but usable?

Another advantage is I can do most of this cold - since forge time is limited for me right now  

so I’m just starting working on leaf spring and I wanted to make a hot cut tool to use to cut pieces off/ to shape. I had a piece of I-beam that I spent most of the day grinding a single bevel grind into (subtle hollow grind) then proceeded to try and hammer the hot Leaf spring on top of it. It barely scratched it... happy to include pics if that might help. Any thoughts as to why this might not have worked? I didn’t make the edge razor sharp for fear of losing the edge but it’s relatively sharp. My Anvil is also a 4 foot piece of heavy I beam so it’s kinda the theme...

I didn’t do any kind of heat treatment to the I beam, not really sure what type of steel it is. Anyway thank you all in advance 

Wel today the guys at work were playing around with some huge chunks of soft pure copper in a mill. Then a guy asks me what they could mill for a testrun. At first I said a hammer, then he pointed to a stack of copper blocks with various hammer holes milled out. So I said "a hardie block?". Took me 5 minutes to explain what it was; but they were all in favor of doing something else (step-milling) then drilling in copper.

Now I have a really big hardy hole; 35 mm(1,4 inch). So this thing is 55 mm (2,2 inch) square and 40 mm (1,6inch) high . Weighs about 1,5 kilo or 3 pounds.

I had to hammer it in the hardie hole a couple times, hence the hammer marks covering the machining marks. Now other then cutting it up for other things, is this usefull ? It sits really tight, it has several usefull 90 degrees angles, and I can use a top cutting tool without fear of damaging the cutting tool (haven't found a top cutting tool that could even scratch my anvil).

Soooo is this thing usefull ? It was free, so nothing lost except half an hour of my time. I also took the rest of the copper "test-pieces" home; trading stock

Here is the finish hot-cut next to the stock it was cut from.  This is right after quench but before temper and final sharpening.

Finish hot-cut in the Hardy of my little anvil.  It's probably a bit bigger than it should be for my little ~90lb anvil but too big is probably better than too small.

Show me your hot cut hardies, improvised or otherwise.

Whitesmith posted this one made from a piece of angle iron.

It can be bolted onto the hardie post if you do not have a welder.

If it gets dull or deformed just touch it with a grinder.