Hot Cuts, Anvil devils, metal cutting on the anvil.

I dont know did anyone tried this but as I doo woodworking and metalworking together and I have one stump tight space in shop, I need to use space that I have so I came up with idea if making choping block and making mortise in it then gluing it to wooden board which goes into hardy hole 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 read somewhere that the main difference between them was that Hot Chisels have a shallower angle and are longer to keep your hand away from the heat. Is that really it? I ask because as a newbie I'm collecting tools to make a start and Hot Chisels don't seem to be very common! I've bought a couple of long series (10" long) Cold Chisels cheap and they already have a pretty shallow angle to start with. Thanks, Vic.

Well I needed a new cold set. Been getting ready with a group of smiths for the upcoming ABANA group forging competition and wanted to bring my tool design to the table. This is more or less the design I like.. I like a blade with a very narrow cross section and a () profile. .. Not my best video job but trying something new with an AI tracking camera and instead of wasting the footage figured I'd put the video together. I did not watch the video in it's entirety so if someone finds a glitch please let me know. Yup, I"m a slacker.

I went to a hammer in a couple months back and one of the smiths there was using a hot cut similar to this. A 3/8" x 3" x 2 3/4" piece of A-2. I used A-2 becuase that was the only piece of steel i could find at work the fit my needs. As we all know hot cut do not HAVE to be high carbon. Wish i would have taken the 4" wide piece after making this though. 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 Mous…

I hope this is in the right place, if it is not, Mods please have mercy. I am not trying to cause chaos with my posts. 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 t…

This was made from 3/4” coil spring. Looking for feedback on anything that could be improved on. There is a lot of forge scale on it which I’m not how to remove. I brushed it each time I pulled it out of the but couldn’t remove it all. not sure if the edge if supposed to be completely sharp?

After looking at what commercially made hardies are available out there from various companies I’ve decided to try and make all my own, out of sucker rod ends or other salvaged objects welded to sucker rod, this afternoon I just made my first hardie tool and started on my second. My first tool was making a hot cut out of a connector end off of a 3/4” sucker rod. My second tool i started was a bending fork but I have just got it forged down to fit the hardie hole I haven’t finished it yet I’ve still gotta weld some rod to it but I haven’t figured out how long to make the rods yet.

first I'm not sure if this right place to put this but it seems kind of like a swage block 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 r…

So here's some results from my latest adventure in hot cutting 1" bar. Other than missing my saw mark (sigh..) my friend and I cut this pretty efficiently! It took a single heat and didn't mess up my hot cut made from the chisel-y end of whatever the end of this was. Come to think of it, how did I cut this originally...? 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 t…

Been thinking about making a hardie hot cut for the pritchell ever since I saw Gary Huston's video about making one for a hole in a rr track anvil. 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.

I made my first hot cut hardy over the last couple of days. Calling it rough would be an understatement. I’m not happy with the way the shoulder turned out and there is a cold shut right below the cutting edge that needs to be ground out. It is covered in marks from the cross peen that I didn’t get out fully and the shape isn’t exactly what I was going for. My biggest mistake was starting with stock that was too small. The starting size of the stock was the same as my hardy. After multiple attempts, I was able to upset the entire piece enough to make it work. The upset wasn’t even though and made it difficult to tell if I had the piece trued up perfectly. As a resul…

Hey guys have another question about some hammers/tools I picked up as I didnt find much info on them. First I have a couple of what look like hot cutter hammers and they have CUT DEVIL stamped on them. I didnt find any info on this company I assume it is. Any info from you guys, also anyone know if these are decent or not? Also have another hammer that has an A encircled with a horse shoe. Was this another company or a subbrand from a company. Kind of hard looking that one up so couldnt find anything on it either. Just kind of curious, I am picking thru a small pile of various hammers/cutters and what not figuring out what I wanna make a part of my very small co…

I just made my first Brian Brazeal-style hot-cut hardy, after suffering for far too long with a crappy hot-cut that didn't fit the hardy hole and bounced all over the place. I really like it a lot, but I've got one question. 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?

Show your hardies.. doesn't matter, shape, size.. You make, they make, MFG make.. Here are the ones I use on a regular basis and a combination hardie I made for a friend

This weeks project fresh out of the forge is a handled hot cut. Made from another hunk of the old jackhammer bit. The same bit I made the eye punch and drift used in this project from. (Super fun to think I made tools to make this tool from the same piece of reclaimed "trash") 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. (Wh…

Made my first hot cut tooling for the 1" hardie hole on the Trenton today. Well... I got through the normalizing cycles. Ill get it ground and heat treated tomorrow afternoon. Started with the shank end of a jackhammer bit of which I made a hammer eye drift from last week. As always, feed back and thoughts to chew on are always welcome and appreciated.

Just starting out and I have a small 55 pound cast steel anvil and would like to make a hot cut hardy and some fullers. Because this anvil is relatively small and if I stick with blacksmithing will move to a larger one, I am looking at something relatively simple. 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 …

Hey guys, 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 …

So I wanted a hot cut that was fitted to the Refflinghaus or the Peddinghaus anvils.. These being German anvils are metric holes. I like my hardies to fit without a lot of wiggle and should sit pretty still when in use. 5160 center and shank. mild for the wings or toes. the shank is not really square it is rounded in the center to match the hardie hole. I have a cold one to make next.

I was given a pretty heavy and long pair of those tinsmith shears that have the ends that will fit in your anvil hardy hole. I know they are used for sheet metal, but would using them to hot cut thinner metals remove the temper of the shear blades and ruin them for their original purpose. Has anyone here used them for hot cutting? I can see them being useful for cutting thinner stock for ornamental work instead of using a chisel. Just thought I'd ask since most people mistake them for a blacksmith tool.

Hello Guys; 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 h…

I thought folks might enjoy pics of these two hot cuts I made from two 7" long pieces of light gauge railway. Jumping them up under the power hammer to fatten it up & square it was probably the hardest bit. I'm not really the sort of person to get out the calculator & start working out mass & where to neck in for the hardy shank so I'm pleased to say that in both cutters my guestimations were bang on & the shanks' lengths are exactly the depth of my hardy. Non tapered shanks, made to fit my hardy which is a hair under 40mm square. No grinding, just a tickle with a file.

Started out with about 4-inches of 1-1/4-inch diameter 4137. Tapered one end and then upset it directly into the hardy hole on my anvil. That got the anvil pretty hot after doing that several times to get an upset collar. I was hoping for a more pronounced collar but I think this will work pretty good for my projects. I forged the cutting edge down to about 1/8 thick and then did the rest with grinder. I quench it and then tempered it in a 450 deg oven (two 2-hour soaks). A file bite into it about as well as a cheap big-box store ax head so I think it's tempered down enough to not be too brittle for use. Here is the finish hot-cut next to the stock it was…

Read a lot about problems with the well known wide variance in hardy hole dimensions in older anvils causing hardy fitting headaches. My old 100# Kohlswa has what appears to be a 7/8" hole, although a bit rough, so with fingers crossed I picked up a half dozen 4" lengths of 7/8" cold rolled 1018 square stock today (at $1.65 per inch, I might add), and of course they wouldn't go in. However, lady luck smiled for a change, and it was just the rounded corners of the anvil's hardy hole that caused the problem. A couple of minutes on the belt sander putting a small radius on all the sharp corners of the bar stock and they now drop right through with a very close fit, with only…

What do you use to hot cut metal? 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.