Anvilfolk

A quick question - have you thought about nailing down your anvil a bit harder? That made my anvil lose its ring almost entirely. It now does a relatively dull thud. The piece is, of course, marvellous :) Amazingly clean finish, I can't spot a single hammer mark. Top notch!

Amazing experience, for sure. Thanks for sharing it with us! Back when I was learning blacksmithing at HCT's Rural Crafts Center with Holme Lacy a fellow student had a final project that involved making part of a tree trunk. They set this thick slab of plate on the ground, then heated a very large bit of metal on the forge (that sure took a while). Finally, they had 3 or 4 people striking it on the floor... hammerhead way up, then all the way down. Absolutely amazing to watch! It sure takes a pounding to move that much metal. The wonderful nail you guys did greatly reminded me of that :)

Sorry about the double posting, but I just found something similar, at around 8:00. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGB7YR2l-KY

I had to see it to believe it.... absolutely ... well, there are no words.

You might've taken a misstep there, Stewart. Click the link and check the picture at the top! :)

Wonderful video. My wife and I just "awwww"'ed our way through it! Lovely :) I either blow on the anvil or use my hand, after tending to the fire. Never gotten burned, but it doesn't mean it can't happen!

Now that is a curious way to handle a sledgehammer! (I hope I'm not opening another can of worms here! :))

Hi 01tundra, I liked your post very much, and I really identify with the duality you mentioned. However, I don't think I completely understood your stand on the following: As a perfectionist, you will strive for perfect work. As an artist, you'll strive for something that shouts out that it's been hand forged (therefore, not perfect). Do you feel that 1) a blacksmith should have the technical ability to forge to perfection and then decide his pieces should look otherwise, or rather that 2) a blacksmith's skill does not need to go that far if he does not wish to make perfect-looking pieces at the current time?

Hi! I really like the left leaf. It's nice and smooth, and has a really nice finish! The bits coming off the leaf are really interesting, I don't think I'd ever seen anything quite like it before, so I must've missed that post! Thanks for sharing!

Great to see other young smiths around! I especially like that you are putting out videos. I sometimes go on youtube and search for blacksmithing, ordering results by date. Most of it is games, but sometimes I'll find the occasional actual blacksmithing video. I think I found one of yours before you put this one here. Either way, the quality of the video is really nice, and I think it makes a great case for why blacksmithing is as wonderful as it is! Congratulations, and I hope you keep doing these! :)

The difference in the search might be that sometimes the search will look in the current forum subsection, and sometimes it will look in the entire forum! Just go the main site and search from there. That should give you a global search. These options are customisable in the search options. Hope this helps!

Thank you for all the comments! I am very glad to See Lourenço's work appreciated outside Portugal as well. One of the most interesting things in reading his memoirs is that not only did he have an absolutely wonderful mastery of the technical part of blacksmithing, but he was also trained as an artist. It makes me feel that we have not only lost the technical part of blacksmithing, but also part of its cultural and artistic heritage. If my memory serves, Lourenço travelled to France and other countries to learn more about this artistic side. I mean, Roman lectus, in Pompeian style? That makes me wonder what other styles there were. It makes me wonder whether these are wrought iron aesthetics, or whether they were more generic artistic styles. I'd love it if an artist by training, who happens to have an interest in blacksmithing, could provide some input on these issues. How much are we, the blacksmithing community, missing of the artist part of "artist blacksmith"?

What a find! Thanks go to Frank Turley for mentioning it and jaimiechimie for finding it! Been going through it and found a nice tip: placing a bit of green coal inside a larger hole one is punching to avoid the punch getting stuck! Sounds real nice! -- edit -- And another tidbit: Bending should be done at a red heat, before the metal starts to scale, so as to keep a smooth surface! Makes a lot of sense, unless you explicitly want the texture of scaled off metal (which I generally like).

Lourenço Chaves de Almeida was a Portuguese Master Blacksmith, born in 1876 and deceased in 1952. He wrote some notes called Memórias de Um Ferreiro, or "Memories of a Blacksmith". These notes were published in 2007 in a book containing some pictures of his work. I have scanned some of them and would like to share them with you all. From what I recall, he never had any apprentices that stuck with the art. The Second World War making iron scarce did not help. As a consequence, his skill was lost, as was that of many other master blacksmiths. This post is meant to remind us all of the amazing skill that once was. These are going from my least preferred to most preferred... Coffer and Key of the City of Coimbra. Main Chandelier of Coimbra's City Council, drawing by A. Augusto Gonçalves. Chandelier from Dr. Bissaia Barreto's house. Pompeian-style chandelier, commissioned by D. Genoveva de Lima Mayer. And my personal favourite... Roman Lectus in Pompeian style, for D. Genoveva de Lima. I need to track these pieces down and try to photograph them, but I don't think you're allowed photographing inside of where these are kept. Hope you all enjoy it! Best, João

The hammerwork definitely needs a little bit of improvement so as to reduce grinding times, but it looks like it should fit a hand pretty well! Show us pictures of the final product! I am personally also more of a fan of pointed tips instead of a round tips on the leaves, but this is really just a matter of personal aesthetic preferences! :) Like Francis Cole said, keep at it! :)

I just read this entire topic and would like to offer my two cents. I was trained at Hereford's Rural Crafts Center, over 7 years ago, which I remember as being a somewhat traditional training wrapped around the college system. It was not, however, as traditional as the guild system (not hitting or withdrawing supper...). The views I developed from this training were that a blacksmith, like any other kind of craftsman or artist, should strive for perfection. Much like I expect any master painter to be able to achieve photo-realism, I believe any master blacksmith should have a mark-free hammer technique. Now, my skill is still rudimentary, but it breaks my heart to see any blacksmith not striving for perfection. If somebody told me they had a mark-free hammer technique, I would be honoured at the opportunity to learn from them. I would not say that it is false claim, that achieving the skill is impossible or that whatever inferior skill I have is enough. It is one thing to accept that real life forces you to make compromises that cause one's hammering not being mark-free. Deadlines for a professional blacksmith; other work or family for hobbyists all contribute to the difficulty of developing such a technique. It is another thing entirely to believe it is a useless skill; that to be a blacksmith all you need to do is heat metal up and bash it; or to, in any way, strive for anything less than perfection. This latter attitude breeds mediocrity, and furthermore causes the loss of knowledge and skill. I absolutely understand the necessity of accepting lesser skill and not going through years upon years of apprenticeship and journeymanship - especially with blacksmithing as a hobby - but I cannot fathom why one would or should stop striving to be better.

Thank you so much for sharing this. Watching a master ply his craft NEVER gets old. This is one smith who does not waste a second. Absolutely wonderful.

Loving the videos :) I put a comment on youtube for one of your previous videos, but I'll reply to this one here. I'll also try not to write too much! Most of this has already been mentioned, but I'll reiterate it! - Where's the fire-rake? You'd done one in a previous video! - As someone else suggested, definitely get the basic toolset (some tongs) before doing other things. In my opinion, vee-bit tongs work for square, round and some rectangular stock. If you make them bolted, like the universal tongs, you'll be able to grip even more pieces. - Instead of holding the axe at below your hammer arm (like at 21:41), just switch over to the other side of the anvil and hold it more comfortably. - Your anvil looks to be far too high. It should be at knuckle height if you are standing up with arms alongside your body. This makes it easier to strike harder. - Related to the above, you should not use your wrist. The strength should come from the elbow and shoulder. - It seems like you are hitting the material at a slight angle, which leaves hammer marks. This is normal at the beginning, and is related to anvil height. It's also the reason why a lot of smiths hit the anvil with a light tap. If the hammer comes straight back up, the angle is good. If it bounces left, right, or forward of backwards, then the angle needs to be corrected! I'm going through this adaptation process right now with my new anvil. - Like someone else said, if you're hammering, get the hammer high and swing it down. Some shoulder and lots of elbow. As it turns out, it ain't like hammering nails where it goes a bit further in every time. Here you really have to whack it! :) - Avoid using gloves, especially in the hammer hand. I rarely, if ever, use them. With practice, you'll be able to feel how hot the piece is just from the rebound that it's giving you. - Get your piece hotter. At around 11.30 in the video you are forging way too cold already. We always feel like doing some more hammering, but sometimes we go too far :) - This one only comes with time. Sometimes you look at the hot piece and wonder what you're doing. Try to get that process going while the piece is heating up. Always know what you are going to do before you take the piece out of the fire! Looking great otherwise! I'm really looking forward to your next video!

All great suggestions! I'm familiar with the process of heat treating and a lot of my tools such as punches have been hardened and tempered. The only problem is that the blacksmiths I trained under only used EN9, whose carbon content was maybe .4 or .45 or something like that, and I've been having trouble finding carbon steel around here. No matter, you have convinced me to search again and perform the experiments that David Gaddis suggests :) I assume you didn't heat the piece back up for tempering, David? Thomas Powers: thanks - that's another one I think I might have material for!

HAHAHAHAHA, that's good one! :lol: Thanks for all the suggestions, they're great and very doable! I'll definitely use them! :)

Ugh, I'm sorry - I understand what you mean now. I think mostly brick & mortar!

My bad - that just reveals how little I know :) Thanks for the heads-up! He builds houses pretty much from the ground up. Putting up the foundation, walls, insulation, windows, gates, finishing up the walls, floors, indoors, outdoors, driveways... etc. Perhaps not electricity or plumbing, but I am not entirely sure. Thanks again!

Hi all, My father-in-law has been amazing in finding me an anvil and just generally being an awesome person. I would like to repay him by forging him some tools that he might actually use instead of a random iron piece. He is a construction worker, but I honestly have very little clue what tools they have that one could forge. For now I would like to avoid hardening and tempering until I am sure it won't shatter. Does anyone have any tips? Thanks!

Thanks for all the posts! I wasn't expecting this much discussion, and it's been a wonderful surprise to see such an involved community! I'm afraid I can't tell you what anvil it is since I wasn't around when it was bought and honestly, I've been so excited about forging I've forgotten to check. I don't recall it having any markings either, and I haven't checked the rebound, which I want to do at some point. I guess at this point I'm at this "if it works, it works" situation where the sound really isn't that bad. I will definitely angle-iron bolt the anvil down and put some wood base and see how that affects the noise. I'll let you know, and perhaps do a slight video of the noise it is making :) I thought about the three-legged design, but it would've taken time and money for me to find plate that thick. So I went for the angle-iron, out of which I'll also be doing the support for a steel tabletop. I think the angle might be a little too vertical on the legs. The bottom line is: - I've forged on it, dragged it around an uneven, broken concrete floor and it was not even remotely close - I've dragged it around an uneven, broken concrete floor without risk of toppling - I've barely noticed the sound while forging (although I know it can get better) It's hard to get on the bottom horizontal stabilisers for upsetting more easily because of the low angle, but hey, I'm happy :) I'd definitely like to try a stump, but it won't work on the floor I have to work with. It probably deadens the ring real nice though!

Hi Matei! Thanks for the tips. Fabrication takes a long time for me, and I get very limited working time, so I'm only doing some minor tweaks. Right now the ring is very acceptable, but I have two things I want to do! First, as you suggested, I'm going to bolt the anvil to the stand. I'll put two holes front and back through which I will bolt some thick angle iron. Second, I'll put a layer of wood between the stand and the anvil, which should further help deaden the sound!