VaughnT

Of all the smiths in the above photos, which one do you honestly think will be the most memorable for the audience? I'm betting that everyone will agree it's the gentleman in the fine chapeau. Note how he maintains the color scheme throughout all of his kit and all of his kit shows attention to detail. He's dressed well, keeps a neat operation, and has a sense of style - this is a guy you wouldn't mind doing some work for you. While all of the other smiths might do masterful work, do they look like they do? Does their kit look warm and inviting? Does the whole ensemble create an ambiance that women will find warm and inviting? Like it or not, women are the major purchasers in western civilization and you need to market to them more than to men. While we guys are attracted to rust and grease, very few women want that image in their minds when they're looking for some home decor. The gentleman in the tophat is fun and looks gentlemanly and safe. This will appeal to women shoppers. And now we know why I don't do public demos.....

I would definitely go with the wooden stand if you're doing public demonstrations and hoping to drum up business. As mentioned, you can keep it hollow and it will be very light as well as good for holding stuff in the back of the truck. But, let's not forget the importance of how you look. You're dealing with potential customers, and presentation really is everything. Combining wood and iron is always a winning combination because it just looks right to people. Putting your anvil on a wood 'stump' looks right to people. More importantly, this needs to apply to everything in the set up. When you're in public, everything has to look the part because you're trying to sell the story. It's the story that gets the customers, not the product. Sell the image and the tale behind it, because that's what they'll brag to their friends about. The Devil's in the details - a standard run-of-the-mill leather apron with nylon straps and plastic side-release buckles will protect you from sparks and such, but a leather apron that's obviously custom made and has those little details that tell the world it's custom made.... well, that will resonate with the customer. They might not be able to explain why they like it, but they know they do. Same with your tools and the stump. Were it I, I'd make one of those wooden stands and decorate around the base with flat iron details. Do some nice scrolls and crosses that will really dress the piece up. It's good practice for you, and it shows the customers that you can pay attention to details. Think about how decorative gypsy wagons are compared to the standard conestoga you've seen in the cowboy movies. If you look around the internet, you'll see a bunch of very simple wooden anvil stumps. They all look pretty much the same.... but there are the rare few that really stand out because the smith went above and beyond when he built and decorated his stump. When I was a lot younger, I used to have to go to horticulture trade shows. At the show there was always one company that dressed in blaze orange. Their booth was blaze orange. They pamphlets were blaze orange. Their business cards were blaze orange. And the lead dude was quite the showman. Oddly enough, everybody knew the company and their product. They had a great reputation in the business and stood out from the herd. Details matter.

Question - when you say this pure iron is soft and has no structural strength, does that mean it's only good for making decorative leaves... or could it be used as the body of an axe or hatchet? Would it deform from chopping wood?

My snow's all melted away. I'm sad, now, and wish we'd get some more. 40º right now and no mention of snow anywhere in the future forecasts.

I got my first winter snow and I'm happy with it. I wouldn't mind some more, though. I love snow in the wintertime, especially when I can look out the back of the and see it falling.

I've always enjoyed working with wood, especially when drawknives and shaving horses are called for. And making a bucket has always been something I've wanted to try. Like with forging iron, cooperage is as much an art as it is a science. If you've got a spare 45 minutes, I definitely recommend you watch Ruedi work his magic.

I have something of a hammer fetish. While the majority of my hammers are simple mass-produced affairs from the local stores, I am always on the lookout for a hammer that has something different about it. I'd gladly take a Brazeal-style rounding hammer over a store-bought one even though the latter is a fraction of the price. I just bought a cross-peen off ebay that looks absolutely delightful and I can't wait to see how she works on blade and leaf shapes. I like to say that surrounding yourself with beautiful tools helps you to make beautiful things. Average, commonplace tools.... well, you get the idea.

I have something of a hammer fetish. While the majority of my hammers are simple mass-produced affairs from the local stores, I am always on the lookout for a hammer that has something different about it. I'd gladly take a Brazeal-style rounding hammer over a store-bought one even though the latter is a fraction of the price. I just bought a cross-peen off ebay that looks absolutely delightful and I can't wait to see how she works on blade and leaf shapes. I like to say that surrounding yourself with beautiful tools helps you to make beautiful things. Average, commonplace tools.... well, you get the idea.

$600 for all of them? I'd move heaven and earth to get them back to the States for a price like that!

Foot, I'm still searching for a decent handle so I haven't been able to try her out on some wood. What little chopping I did just holding it by hand seems to show the secondary bevel maybe a hair too blunt. Could have been me and my technique, but I prefer to blame the tool for any lousy performance when possible. I've done a bit more research and it seems like only Plumb-brand masonry hammers have/had the thick walls around the eye. As rusted and corroded as my hammer started out, the side walls are still a strong 3/16" thick. Plenty of meat to forge out if someone was of a mind to do such a thing. I like the feature because it adds some nice mass to the adze and gives it the right look. I'm watching ebay for more Plumb hammers that I can convert; I'm hoping to make at least three more adzes for my personal collection before the year's out. More to follow when I get a decent handle.....

My handle treatment of choice: 1 part boiled linseed oil + 4 parts thinner - - - Apply to a handle that's been warmed by the forge for awhile. You want to drive out as much residual moisture from the wood as you can. Then paint on the thinned BLO. Thinning the BLO allows it to soak into the pores of the wood much easier. If the handle hasn't been fixed to the head, be careful to not get any BLO on the area that will go inside the head. The BLO will act like a lube and prevent a good lock-up with the head. This is especially important if you use glue or epoxy to help fix the head/wedge in place. If you've already got a head in place, you can heat the whole thing up by the forge and then slip the handle down into a PVC pipe filled with the thinned BLO. Saves you from having to paint it on and catch the drips, and it gives the wood plenty of time to soak in.

I've used a few heavy hammers and the one thing I've found helpful is to leave the handle long enough that it rests against the underside of my forearm. This takes the strain off the wrist/hand muscles, especially on the pick up. I basically just act as a guide for the falling hammer, letting its weight do the majority of the work.

Welcome to the club, Pintail. I've always wanted a hit-n-miss engine. There's something about them that's very relaxing to watch and listen to. Thankfully, I have control over my addictive tendencies and have managed to evade the hit-n-miss bug. It's a constant battle, though! :D

Very nice work. I've been tinkering with the idea of forging some top tools, but never quite seem to get around to it. There really can be too many irons in the fire! Anyhow, you're work looks great as-is and I wouldn't be too quick to take them to a grinder. Give 'em a wipe down with an oily rag and stick a handle on them, I say.

Nick, that sounds like an excuse to make more of them! I can't very well go around with my bevel on the wrong side, now can I? ;) Interestingly, most of the small adzes on ebay have far more curve than mine does, and they all seem to have the bevel on the inside. This is the opposite of the adzes sold by a lot of the woodworking places. Stefflus, that's an interesting idea. I don't know how much mass you'd need for one of these things, but it would certainly look cool. I like having an excuse to experiment with these things.

My lens could be a problem. I have bad eyes and one of those auto-off helmets, but I've never really gotten the drift of how to set the thing so I don't burn my eyeballs with IR or UV nastiness. I'll have to experiment on that, I guess. Seeing the puddle? Can't really do that with the stick in the way. Everyone tells me that "if is slags, it drags", and since I have to try watching where I'm going, keeping the stick in the crotch, that puts the stick right in the way of the puddle. If I watch from the other side of the stick, I can't see where I'm driving. Or am I doing something wrong? Amps seem right because I always get the rod recessed in a cup of flux. I could have had some moisture issues, though. I guess I'll have to warm the rods under my forge for a few minutes before trying to cover these nasty blobs. And, yea, that's the back end of my bench vise. :)

As this is a family-oriented site, let me just say that there's a big difference between a bead welder and a blob welder. I'm of the latter group! My latest excursion into the dark arts was about as frustrating as I can stand. After beating the snot out of my godzilla guillotine during an adze-making exercise, I decided to ramp up production on another guillotine. I should have known better than to think it would go smoothly. Some days my blobs actually look rather bead-like and I'm genuinely impressed with myself. Today was not one of those days. What does it mean when the blob won't stick to one piece of the assembly but bores right in to the other? I've never seen such a thing before! All the weld zones were cleaned of rust and dirt, but apparently there was still some residual Pam on the base plate. I solved the problem by holding the 7018 really steady and slap burning through half a rod for every half-inch of blob I put down. Now I need to buy a really good carbide burr and a Dremel so I can go back through all those blobs and carve them to look like a stack of nickels.

Do you work with adzes a lot, Foot? I've only seen them in pictures, so this was something of an adventure and I'm looking forward to getting it hafted. I can see how the sharp corners would create ridges on the wood. What type of angle do you think is best for a GP adze edge bevel? Treat it like any other knife or chisel? Or, keep it rather obtuse for strength?

Finito! The cold weather is moving in hard and fast, but I didn't let that stop me from spending some quality time in the smithy. I brought her to a nice orange and let her soak for a few minutes while I got everything ready. Then it was a nice warm oil bath for her. The edge was drawn to a nice blue/purple which I've always found good for knives and chisels. We'll have to see how it does for an adze. Tomorrow, if the weather is suitably blustery, I'm heading out into the woods to find a bit of hardwood for the handle.

Beautiful work. I don't know what all that lingo means, but that's a great third hand. With that much weight, it's sure to hold your parts steady!

Blacksmith bolt dot com sells all the fasteners you could ask for, and none of it is coated with nasty stuff you can't forge. They even sell lag bolt blanks last time I looked. For gate hardware, I always modify store-bought fasteners.

Foot, I was thinking about curving the blade. Honestly, I started out with the idea of making a bowl adze so I could cave out a few dough troughs. Something, though, is telling me to keep this one flat. I maybe it's just the first time jitters, but I like how it looks. I've already started looking for my second hammer, so maybe the next adze will get a bit of curl to it....

Will do, hoss! I've already sliced my shin open once and don't look forward to repeating that endeavor any time soon. Thankfully, this is just a small one for carving bowls and such. That means I only have to worry about my fingers! :D

I've been wanting to forge an adze for some time, but never got around to it. Then I found an old masonry hammer in the bucket of spare stuff and thought it would suffice for the task. It certainly wasn't up to being a hammer any more. The handle has seen better days, so it was an easy decision to make. I don't know where this hammer came from, and I certainly never used it for laying block or stone. So, into the fire..... My fullering tool is really getting a workout. The decision to radius the end of the bolt shank is paying off now! I'll definitely have to rebuild my Godzilla's top die, but it was worth it. I've never handled an adze before so I wasn't sure what dimensions to go for. Basically, I listened to the metal and stopped when I felt it looked right. The edge measures just a hair over 2.5" and is about 3" long. Tomorrow, god willing and the creek don't rise, I'll do the heat treat and grind the bevel. Then it's just a matter of finding a decent piece of wood for the handle. And if I run into any more masonry hammers.... I would certainly like a few more adzes!

There's a guy (Anvilhill) on ebay that's advertising "pure iron" bars for sale. He says it's only .02% carbon, but I've never tried any of it and couldn't vouch for it. It's the only time I've ever seen "pure iron" listed for sale anywhere.