dbrandow

Makes sense. Thanks!

Its up on theauctionadvertiser.com and, if I remember correctly, which I may not, it was next Saturday.

Interesting. Would you happen to know the history behind why it was made that way?

If you don't mind driving to Ontario, its up for auction, apparently. Bit of a trip from Seattle, though. :-)

Naturally, it was just that I hadn't seen one before with that distinctive a design before, so I was curious if anyone knew anything about it.

Just a quick check to see whether anyone knew off the top of their head what inspired this design of anvil which I saw a picture of today.

As an aside, the original quote was from Aristotle, who said that 'Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach'. This was later parodied as 'Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach' and later even further as 'Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach. Those that can't teach, become guidance counsellors'. But few people realize that the latter two are both parodies of the original, which was intended to be complimentary.

Thanks to everyone for the answers/guidance so far. In regards to these questions, the answers are: Mild steel. Not sure about the speed, I'll have a look at the drill press when I get home. Drill bit size varies, 3/16 and up, typically. I'm just using tapping oil. I've tried titanium and black oxide, haven't tried cobalt yet. I've tried varying the amount of pressure on the drill from a light touch to heavy pressure, doesn't appear to make much of a difference. I'd like to think I did, but I'll be sure to make sure of that next time. When I have a piece like this that I'm struggling with, I anneal it (raise it above critical point, stick in bucket of pearlite to cool overnight).

I seem to be running into an inability to drill through my work after I've forged it. I'm not quenching it at any point, and I've tried annealling it before trying to drill through it, but that doesn't help. The bit is sharp enough, it works on other pieces I haven't been hammering on, nothing wrong with the drill press, either. Can anybody explain to me what I assume is the blatantly obvious thing I'm doing wrong?