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I Forge Iron

MikeAnvil

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Everything posted by MikeAnvil

  1. I had thought about putting a 1/2 inch thick steel plate on top of the face but I know that if the two surfaces are not completely smoothe and flat it will cause an air space to exist between the two surfaces and dampen the rebound. Since I have two of these stones carved, I think I will experiment with the larger one (160#) by using a ceramic tile mortar to fuse the metal plate to the face of the anvil and see how dampened the rebound is. Of course I will put the mortar on the steel plate and then lay the rock on top of the steel plate so that there is plenty of weight on the mortar to squeeze out excess mortar and air bubbles. This should be fun! I will keep you posted on my results. -mike-
  2. I just finished making a 130# granite rock anvil that I cut with a 15 amp angle grinder. It has a 1/4 inch thick steel band around the surface edge to help prevent the face from chipping. It took me about 45 minutes to cut the anvil and another hour to add the steel band. I posted a couple of videos of the finished project on youtube at... . I have not forged on the anvil yet, but it does have excellent hammer rebound. I am not the first to think of using granite for an anvil; Wayne Goddard briefly discussed using a granite slab as an anvil in his 2001 book "The $50 Knife Shop." There is also a couple of videos on youtube that show a guy using a granite rock to forge a knife from a railroad spike at... . I still have to build my forge before I can test the anvil. I'm going to use my old Webber barbeque for the forge and use a hair dryer for the blower and plug it into a dimmer switch box. Of course I would love to have a steel anvil but have not been able to find one for $150 or less. The rock was free and the steel band was $7. I can't wait to give it a try! I had initially thought about making a steel anvil using 1 inch thick plates of steel (12" x 12") with a slab of 1/2" thick tool steel welded on top and a horn made of 2" thick round steel bar plates that descend from 4" in diameter down to 1" (with the plates aligned level to one another at the top). Enclosed is a photo of the finished rock anvil product.
  3. Hi: Just joined recently. From So California. New at blacksmithing. I have read a lot of stuff. Trying to get set up to do wrought iron fencing & gates. Hopefully a knife and other stuff eventually. -mike-
  4. I'm the latest greenhorn newbie. I have always been interested in blacksmithing. Now I finally got serious about learning it. I'm 52-years old and teach myself everything I want to know. Hopefully I will learn enough to start doing some real blacksmithing some time in 2010. :cool:
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