VaughnT

Don't begrudge folks what they charge for a piece. That "simply made" hot cut they're asking $60 for took a solid 30 minutes to forge to shape, and the price includes the cost labor, material and electricity to light up the shop. If you value your time, you can't fault someone else for valuing their time. You can weld up something that will cut hot metal, but you're not getting anything close to the same quality and you'll still have burned up $60 in time and materials. Labor, electricity, consumables, the hours spent learning how to weld, wear and tear on your tooling, all of this has to be factored in to the price of the goods being offered for sale. And then you have to worry about how long the piece will sit on a shelf before someone buys it. I had a guy do the same thing to me just the other day. He thought my flint striker was too pricey and he could make a similar one by himself. I don't know if he ever did try to make a striker like mine, but I do know that he didn't have the tools or experience to make a close replica of what I made. The time and materials he would have burned up could have been better spent on something else, and he would have ended up with a product that suited his needs. But, he didn't want to pay me $40 because that was just too much money for something that looked so 'simply made'. And that striker still hasn't found a new home. All that time and energy is stuck in the striker, collecting dust on a shelf, until a new home is found. Yesteryear Forge makes a great guillotine and I highly recommend you add that to the list of "must have" tools in the shop. Like a vise, a good guillotine tool allows you to do things you would have a hard time doing otherwise. Definitely on the top of my list of tools used regularly. And, yes, Yesteryear's pricing is spot on. Even if you try to cobble something up on your own, you'll have several hours worth of labor, materials and consumables to account for.

No, Woodweavil, we are the internet and we must be obeyed!!! :D Personally, I think any anvil with that quality of engraving will turn out good just because of all the positive vibes.

Nice job, Intrex. I'd love to hear more about the building process. Did you start with three-eighths round? Will you be adding the other two parts or just using it as-is? I'm gonna have to try making one of those.....

Ivan has a good point, but that also makes it possible for someone to steal the credit for your work, claiming it as their own. Without a maker's mark, you can't prove otherwise. Hidden marks are a good way to protect yourself and get the credit you deserve. I always get a chuckle out of folks that try to fit all their business information in one stamp and end up ruining the piece. I've seen knife-makers do it a lot with, "M. Punxatoney, Bladesmith, East Timbuktu, Arkansas" on a 3" blade! Always makes me think, why put bladesmith on a blade? What about the handle? Are you also a handle-smith or did someone else make the handle and assemble all the parts? Or are the customers do dumb that they don't realize a blade might be made by a bladesmith? Should you really be selling knives to people that dumb? ;) I'm in the process of designing my stamp and have decided on just using my initials in a nice font, maybe inside a cartouche. Nothing big or garish so it will look decent on a small blade or candlestick. Just have to decide on the font/design and get it made.......

Weld the pointy end to 30" of square stock with a nice solid weld. Then heat and twist the spike to make a decorative handle. Or twist the spike, then untwist it to make a basket. With the head of the spike serving as the foot, you'd have some really neat table legs! Nobody ever puts basket twists at the bottom of a leg.

I agree with using your name instead of a shop name. As for placement, if your mark is small and nicely made, putting it on the front isn't a bad idea. I still want to put it in an out of the way place, though. While it's good to have it seen, you don't want the stamp glaringly obvious and detracting from the rest of the piece.

Good job. And now that you have the first pair to help making the second pair.....

Here's a dandy of an idea...... http://www.homemetalshopclub.org/projects/crane/crane.html

I was just sent a shard of flint from Holland. You can tell that it was removed from the core by human hands, but no idea how old it is. It strikes a spark when hit with one of my strikers, though, so I'm happy. Other than that, the oldest known thing I own is my beautiful Fisher Norris anvil cast in 1882. Love her to death and work on her just about every day.

For day-to-day drudge work, I'd say that most third-world countries would be dandy because they still used blacksmiths to craft all sorts of tools. The pay and living conditions, however, are somewhat lacking. Europe, to include the UK, must certainly be very nice because they have so much historical familiarity with the craft and there are still tons of relatively affordable anvils and other kit to be found. Some of the anvils I've seen on the web are ridiculously cheap compared to what they'd cost over here. In the US and Canada, the blacksmith has been relegated to either a quaint kitsch-maker found at small fairs, or a professional shop able to turn out big pieces for wealthy estates. The general lack of antique ironwork in most locales means there's nothing that needs repair and maintenance. And the appreciation for the craft isn't so great that we see fancy subdivisions around the country supporting the local smiths with their need for gates, burglar bars, and furniture. Heck, I live just a few miles from a dozen different golf-course communities that are big money, but you don't see any decorative ironwork on the McMansions unless you count the mass-produced machine-bent scrolls tack welded in to the mass-produced fencing. All told, I wouldn't want to live or work anywhere else.

Let's not forget bottled water. Most folks think bottled water was some crazy fad invented in the 1980s, but it was actually the standard all the way up until the early 1900's when someone finally invented a way to purify water so it could be piped around cities. Until then, the bottled-water industry was huge because it was the only way to be sure you were getting clean, safe water. Once city water was purified and pipes were laid, public water fountains and kitchen sinks temporarily replaced the bottled water.... until someone came up with the idea because of its convenience and.... cleanliness.

I would definitely consider it, Matto. Or make them match the swage block's stand. All this talk about matching elements in the overall picture..... interior design has never been so manly!! :D

That will definitely do the job! Once so pictures of a guy that built his shop inside a metal grain silo and it was beautiful with the round wall. The only problem I can see is getting your chimney above the roof line so you can get an adequate draw to take the smoke out. Of course, if you're using a propane forge, the problem is solved. Just make sure you have plenty of good air coming in to disperse the bad fumes. As with any wood structure, you need to be really careful about sparks setting things ablaze that shouldn't be. Some tin roofing material around the first 6' would go a long way to preventing unwanted burning.

I question the need for a curved anvil to set up a wagon wheel. I've watched dozens of youtube videos with ole-timey smiths welding the tires, and they never seemed to suffer for the lack of a specialized anvil like you've found. All of them use some variation of the london-patter anvil and get the job done quickly. Even in a mass-production setting where hundreds of generic tires are being made every day, I don't see the benefit to an anvil like yours. Are you sure it's cast iron and not cast steel? No sign of a quality steel face plate? An unusual design requiring an oddball mounting system to make a product that can made both quickly and easily on a traditional anvil with a traditional mount.... it just doesn't make sense. Where I could see a cast iron block like that coming in handy would be for making short arc bends that are identical every time. Like you might need when making stair railing finials and such. The anvil could sit on a stump and have the end of the bar lightly hammered to match the needed radii. Not saying that's the case, but it's a sure sight more believable to me than forging wagon wheels.

Very nice work, Juke.

Beautiful forge. I definitely agree on the larger wheels. I would look for really big wheels from some old farm equipment. Anything larger than 16" will be great for rolling and give it a classic look.

That's some beautiful milling, hoss. Hard to imagine that so fine a level of detail is possible with a milling machine! She's definitely going to be a dandy of an anvil!

Beautiful work, Joe.

Mad, flat works. It's all about how tight you want to be able to get in a corner. I ran mine to a sharp corner and then just broke the edge with a file. The other set hammer I have was worked flat, but has radii of various sizes depending on each side.

Wonderful videos. I love the anvil dancing they did at the beginning of the first one. Thanks for the translation, Gergely.

Very nice bit of kit. I love how contained the whole thing is.

Beautiful shop, and I have no doubt that a clean and tidy workspace will translate into sales. Great to see such a great example.

Take a standard rubber band and wrap it around the threaded portion of the handle. A few wraps of electrical tape over the rubber band will build up a nice ball and prevent the handle from falling out. Very cheap and easy to replace as it gets worn. The handle doesn't look bent enough to be any problem. As long as it moves freely through the mounting hole, I wouldn't worry about trying to straighten it. Just wrap some wire, rubber bands and tape around the one end and go to work.

While I have a large flatter, I prefer to use my smaller 1.5" set hammer to flatten out hammer marks. I'll use the hold fast to secure the work to the anvil and act as my own striker, using a 4lb sledge on the set hammer. My larger flatter is nice, but it also distributes the limited force I can apply over a larger area. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's not always a great thing, either. If you don't have one, you should definitely make or buy one. There are several on ebay every time I check, and they're certainly worth the money, imo.

I think sales like that would be very nice for a pro smith. If you factor in the amount of time you actually spent forging the openers, I dare to guess you don't have more than 80 hours of actual smithing time in the game; you just spread it out over six weeks. And once you get bigger reputation in the area, you'll be able to sell those bigger ticket items. Congrats!