Timothy Miller

I would just weld hard face the the block grind it smooth and use it as a block anvil. this way you have maximum mass.  I would then make a bickiron and use that as my horn and heel.  I would put a hardie hole as a side weldement on the block anvil by milling a square slot in a cube of steel say 2" square with a 3/4 slot in it. 

Funny thing is every time I go to blacksmith meets I see dozens of anvils for sale.  I see them on Craig's list and eBay for sale prices ranging from 1 to 4 dollars a pound.  Unless your dead broke you can get an anvil if you want it bad enough.  The only thing stopping would be smiths is drive and determination you want it bad enough it will happen.

I work with the horn to the left I am right handed.  As far as I have seen this it the most common way of working most smiths being right handed.  I think it also make sense being most anvils have the logo facing out when the anvil is positioned this way so onlookers could see what brand of anvil the smith was using. I'm not saying its wrong to work on the other side of the anvil its just much less common. 

Buy an anvil and get forging.  The time effort and money to fabricate good anvil exceed the time, effort and money needed to buy a good anvil.  Until you have worked on a good anvil you don't really know what a good anvil is. 

I'm on Long Island stop by if you like. 

I once hand forged a flatter.  I upset the end of a 2" truck axel made the widest face I could about 3" round.  I then punched the eye.  It was a job.  Those masons hammers are sometimes higher carbon steel, thus harder to forge. The current trend towards 1045 hammers may have made you think it was less of a task than it really was.  That hammer was probally more like 1060 as a masons hammer it needed some abrasion resistance.  I did have acces to a swage block to form a nice sholder.  I wanted it to look like a classsic flatter a mark of pride and skill.  Forging a flatter with no other tools than an anvil and hammer is a even harder job.

I see your point Alan,  I do avoid plastic as much as I can though, spacificaly with things around the forge.  I don't like to use the files single handly but it can't be helped at times. For example on a railing where you can't fit your arm through the infill. I will only use metal garbage cans and metal storage bins on the shop floor that way if there is a fire it wll be safely contained.

The least expensive file handles are less than 2 dollars for Mcmastercarr.  Its not even worth the time to use anything else.  I have at times used a short section of tree branch in a pinch.  Sometines you need to file single handed try doing that with a golf ball grip. Plus burning plastic is toxic it has no place in a blacksmith shop.  Using good tooling and proper procedure will reward you in the long run. 

A real man would have dovetailed it in. :)

I just forged out a heavily pitted section of very thick leaf spring.  Normaly I would have scrapped the material but I needed the material right then and there. What happens is the rust falls off and some is converted to scale that then falls off.  You are left behind with very pitted metal.  Depending on your skill you can work some of these pits out as the forging prigresses by reducing the thickness in those places thus leveling and smoothing the surface.  I was doing a drastic reduction in size so I was able to get rid of most of the pits.  Those that I did not forge out wound up as long thin inclusions in the surface.  I ended up grinding away the surface to get rid of all the degraded metal so I could have a sound forging.  Its not really worth the effort but very rusty steel can be used. 

This really rings true do you write professionally?  I recently got asked to quote a job and every RFI was replied with see drawings and check ASTM-XXX.  A simple 10 min conversation with the engineer could have cleared things up instead it took 6 people a a week to figure things out.  Our company tries to be upfront and honest its probably why we are doing well and growing.  

I Will buy the whole bar I sent you a message.

Here is one I am forging out of wrought iron.

Here are a few of mine I sort of collect them.

I was told by a salesman from Cleveland punch and die that most punches and dies are S5 tool steel.  

Visit your local railing shop they have old railings and cut offs just laying around for scrap. 

Your hammers are beautiful you should be proud. 

I think this problem could be partially be solved by not allowing the threads that contain original information or valuable information to be buried be by posts that ask for the 900th for a date on a Hay-Budden anvil. Perhaps these should tacked to the end of a relevant thread to enforce some sort of order.   There should be a balance between the needs of the beginners and the needs of the more advanced.  I have learned a bunch here but when I see that 90% of the new posts are the same old questions i want to come here less and less.    There is a reason why beginners start at the bottom and get the work no one else wants to do.  Its because the make mistakes and mess things up for the old hands who have paid their dues. If you really want to get good at this you need to have some discipline and perseverance.    Perhaps there could be a beginner questions section with a bunch of stuff pinned to the top for easy reference.

Any forged item is inherently sterilized from the heat of the forge.  Keep the item clean and free of rust and you should be fine.  Basically pure Iron is not really an attractive thing to microorganisms not much to live on food wise.  Though the porous surface of rust can harbor food residue that can support germs.  People ate with iron forks and knives for centuries. 

White heat = ruined steel

Thanks for the photos that first one is interesting. 

I have found it is often the same amount of work to modify a existing hammer as to just punch an handle hole in in a piece of properly sized steel.   Its counter intuitive but when you get into tiring to find the right sized handle grinding cutting reheat treating it can be a time consuming process and your still tiring to work somewhat unknown steel and a shape that may be less than ideal.  It may seem daunting but I have seen students with no experience jump in and forge a hammer with help from an instructor there first time out.  There is plenty of good information here and elsewhere on forging hammers. You can do it Man!!! 

It is a track chisel as said above for cutting RR track cold.   

I would love to see the whole collection.  I have a real sweet spot for any colonial era iron the old stuff speaks to me. 

I could be cast iron but it was rarely made in bar form.