ThomasPowers

Tight at room temp and tight at hot temp are not the same; but a few self drilling self tapping metal screws through the overlap will make sure it won't work loose even when hot.

Your *first* anvil is worth more per pound to *you* than the second through nth anvil. (And by some strange coincidence the first one is often more expensive than the ones you find after that one is at home on a stump...)

I second it!

1 How is the war axe going to get used? Display---why harden? Wood chopping---purple should be fine *depending on what alloy the original hammer head was* (There is not *1* alloy that has been used for hammer heads all over the world for the last 100 years you know...) Differential harden or temper (or both) would be nice for a using example especially if you demo it against sheet metal---and the alloy doesn't crack at the quench line. 2 Try to figure out the general alloy by the spark test and harden for that alloy and then do a differential temper by sticking hot drifts in the handle eye. Now how hard you like your hammer faces is something *I* don't know so temper it till it's they way *you* like it and then quench in water to stop it. 3 Find a local blacksmith who can make or modify a set of tongs for you. I pick up some large old tongs just to have preforms that are easily modded into specialty tongs for projects.

Make a dandy mailbox holder, set it up to trap the (reinforced) mailbox between the upper and lower dies, might help with baseball bat yahoos. I was hunting a smithy in germany once and suddenly turned into a driveway and my wife asked me Why? I said the 275 kg lufthammer at the entrance way was a dead give away...

Note that if you have a big pan of antifreeze with your stump soaking in it it is an attractive nuisance for pets who will die horribly if they drink it. Should be fine *in* the wood though.

Sort of like saying that you play football but never heard of the Super Bowl! I envy how close you are. I think the only time I missed a Quad-State when I lived in Columbus OH for 15 years was when I was out of the country on a business trip. I'll be driving close to 1500 miles each way in an un-airconditioned, no cruise control 22 year old pick-up.

I have a 500+# Fisher with 2 1.5" hardy holes. What I have started doing is to find old top tooling and forge the handle eye section to fit the hardy holes thus turning them into bottom tooling that fit the hardy holes. I often get them cheap as the old large and grungy ones are not at the top of the list for most smiths. Last Quad-State there was a tailgater who had a large pile of such items and with a price that went down as the event progressed. Every time they lowered their price I'd pick up some more stuff that had hit my buy point. Had a lot of fun converting them into tooling for the main shop anvil! I have also made a set of nesting sleeves for the hardy hole from square tubing by slicing down the corners and folding the tabs out. Using a couple of those I can make use of my other anvils tools.

I pray for him, for you, for your wife and other children. Truly a parent's nightmare.

Move out here....we had a RH of 8% yesterday and a temp over 100. Of course all your handled tools will have to be reset once they dry out...

I have a hammer that nobody else is allowed to use too. Dug it out of the mud underneath a pile of scrap at a scrapyard in England one trip. Real wrought iron body with steeled faces and probably going on 200 years old or so. I use it now and again; but others are warned off!

There is an option of taking a truck axle and forging your own to suit yourself. Now some folks will let on that that would be a bit beyond their skills; but you have to ask them then why are you trying to do blades without knowing the basics? Now there are lots of reasons to buy rather than make. I buy tongs as I can find them reasonable and I can weld up a billet in the same time it would take me to do tongs and the billet is much more financially rewarding so to speak. However I have made tongs in the past, the last pair out of Ti to use with my gasser. (but even there I found a set of Ti tongs at the last Quad-State for US$10 !)

Of course medieval swords would not look "rough and primitive" Sort of like saying you want a million dollar sports car that looks poorly made...Even the munition work was pretty well done. Will you be at Quad-State Blacksmiths Round-Up in Troy Ohio the last full weekend of September? There is always a knifemaking demo by a "name" maker and all the equipment one would dream of in the tailgating area. You can camp on-site leaving more money for shopping and a bunch of the old KeenJunk crowd always gets together for a potluck or two. I'm driving in from New Mexico for it, it's that good! If you can only do one day then Saturday is the one to shoot for. I hope to come in on Wednesday and be drooling at the gate as tailgating stuff arrives... http://www.sofasounds.com/conference2011/2011index.htm

Yes! The best material is whatever you can find. The last pair of tongs I made (or bought for that matter) were made from Ti, it was what I could find. Now if we knew more we could tell you more.

Sounds like you want a hawk drift. They'll be selling them at Quad-State in about 6 weeks!

The one that works the best?

Sure like to see a truckload of those turn up at Quad-State now that the ballistic nose cones are all gone.

Boy that one's "fun sized"!

Listing your location might be a big help unless you have no problem paying for international shipping of anvils. I like the NIMBA anvils myself and wish I could afford the big one!

The best tip I have is to get someone who knows how to do it to work you through your first several billets. Learning it from the web or books is a whole lot slower and failure-full.

You can have a good fit without it being wedged and make sure that most of the force is transferred to the face of the anvil through a good wide base that sits on it with the stem down the hardy.

Most anvils are made out of different stuff! Old traditional anvils have a wrought iron body (forge welded up from chunks!) with a steel face forge welded to the top. Then there are cast steel anvils, then there are anvils with a cast mild base welded to a cast higher carbon face, then there are anvils with a cast iron base that was welded to a steel face during the casting process, there there are cast iron ASOs. Knowing the brand and approximate age can help narrow down what construction an anvil has. The book "Anvils in America" by Postman and the upcoming sequel to it is the gold standard for details on anvils!

An anvil is anything you can pound on that doesn't break burn or melt! Most of the world (and all of the world for most of history!) doesn't use London Pattern anvils so stop looking to pay a lot of cash for something you don't need. A chunk of broken fork lift tine makes an anvil far superior to RR rail (as does the broken knuckle of a train car coupler) Living on an island I will guarantee that there are forklifts around to unload stuff brought by ship. When a tine is damaged they are not generally repaired due to liability concerns. You should be able to find one for scrap rate! http://www.marco-borromei.com/fork.html Also mentioned in a recent thread are the large dock cleats for tying up ships. Think heavy chunk of steel---having a curved section is nice but not needed. (and I built a stake anvil to go with my 25# Early Medieval "cube" anvil that was made from an odd shaped sledge head to get a curve to work off of.) Getting caught up waiting for/wanting a London Pattern anvil is sort of like saying you can't drive a car because can't find a Porsche. Now it's way far away; but Bang Iron Valley on Pitcairn Island was named that as that is where the anvil from the Bounty was put after the mutineers landed there... Also a great-uncle-in-law was telling me about forging parts for a sugar refinery using the refinery's shop and anvil. And I know of an anvil that was used during WWII in a hospital for orthopedic work. So anvils can be in the weirdest places (got a big postvise from an auto repair business that was finally closing. It opened in 1918 and so had a complete smithy as part of it)

May I commend to your attention this method of making a great anvil from locally available scrap: http://www.marco-borromei.com/fork.html Of course I'm the Thomas mentioned and have the mate to that piece in my scrap pile here in NM

Mandrel is not a specific shape so if you could help us out with what you mean; eg ring mandrel is quite different than one to use making bodkin points for crossbow bolts. Now for relatively small stuff I found some old spud wrenches used to align holes in structural steel. Good drop forged steel with a nice taper, (I only get the old ones with a nice taper!). Then I forge the open end wrench end to fit the hardy hole of an anvil and then bend it 90 deg at the flat area behind the ex-open end wrench (as close to the taper as possible to get more room over the anvil. I also have one that's left vertical. I also have bull pins that I use as drifts. I pick up spud wrenches whenever I find them for US$5 or less at fleamarkets, garage sales, junk stores, etc. For truing larger rings I have the nose cone from a ballistic missile...