Kristopher Skelton

Thanks Neal. I'm in the Pacific Northwest, and if this anvil has been local for most of its life it might have been used to fix the same type of tool.

I think that settles it 3 of 3 say Hay Budden, so that's what I'm gonna call it from here on out. thanks gents!

Hi folks I picked up this anvil over the weekend and am curious whether we can figure out origins and whatnot just for the fun of solving a mystery. I've done as much research as I think I can on the internet and my best guess is -maybe- an Arm and Hammer, and that's based soley on the rough finish under the heel. I don't think I found some piece of history or anything, but I think I got a good deal on what should prove to be a serviceable anvil. Here's what I know for sure: It's heavy: the seller said 400#. It rings like a church bell on the face, heel and horn. The body makes almost no noise in comparison. The only identifiable markings are on the left front foot (if you're about to put your eye out with the horn, that is) and it appears to be a 5-digit number. Most of it has been obliterated by years of punching and chiseling. Maybe someone can explain why someone would go to the foot of an anvil when they needed a place to set a punch... The rest of the body, face and horn had been treated the same way- punch and chisel marks all over. And there is also a number 6 or 9 just under the horn (this would depend on whether it was punched in top down or rightside up). The face is somewhat swaybacked. I worked on it with my grinder and it became evident very quickly that this anvil had been abused and repaired several times. You can see the welding on the face in the blog photos (below). The hardy is 1.45" and the pritchel is 5/8. The heel from the hardy back is the only part of the anvil that was spared from the mad chiseler. The feet do not have ledges (whereas my Peter Wright does- and the logo on that anvil is easy to read, so that was a no-brainer). There is no indentation/depression under the anvil, though there is a lip about 1/2" wide by maybe 1/8" (I didn't measure it). The bottom of the base has a square hole and has rusted some, giving a ropey, wrought-iron look. I can take as many pics as you like and they can be huge if need be. For now here's a link to my blog with a few pics that can be enlarged anvil posting Thanks in advance!

I've seen fresnel lenses that were about 3'x5'. American Science & Surplus : Send to a Friend I was thinking it would be cool to try to set something up where the light would be focused into a firebrick forge... Too bad I live in Seattle where it -might- work 3 days a year. TX and AZ would have a better shot.

I've been buying my belts from Supergrit.com and they've been nothing but awesome. The website is great, the pricing and shipping have been very good.

habu68: dodecahedron is your 12 sided three dimensional object ;)

Any guess how much weight you lost on the hammer? That's a good way to see whether you like the diag peens- you can't get too sad about a $5 hammer and 2 hours of work if you don't like it :)

The sound is travelling through the two thinnest parts- the horn and the heel. Hold onto the horn and tap the face of the anvil and you will feel the vibration in your hand as well as notice that the ring is dampened. Do the same with your hand on the anvil's side. The bolt through the heel is a great idea, all of that sound energy goes into moving the bolt (and I'll give it a try to see how effective it is). What I've done is taken two speaker magnets (from 10" subwoofers) and put one on top of the horn, near the tip and one under the heel just under the hardy hole (it gets repositioned whenever I need to use a tool ) . There's still a slight ring but nothing like the noise without them. The vibrations through the anvil are often enough to shake one or both loose but they're easily replaced.

Any piece of metal with sufficient mass will do the job... some better than others. If you're going to the scrapyard for rail, you might find something suited to smithing that requires less initial work. Sawyers anvils look like steel blocks with little feet. Japanese swordsmtihs use blocks that look to be about 4x6 on the main face and sunk into the ground probably 6" or more. If you're desperate enough to use some rail, you're in a position to look at the cast steel anvils from Harbor Freight. I'm not going to listen to the detractors. I used one for a few years until I saved up enough for the Peter Wright I'm currently using. Yep, the face gets dings and the horn's nothing to write home about. But it's 110# of steel that can be readily mounted to a stump, anvil stand, whathaveyou and they have a hardy hole for tools... can't say that about rail I've seen them on sale for about $70. Plus they're an excuse to but a $15 angle grinder and some disks while you're there, to clean up the face :)

So you're welding mild then? in the case of the 1/2" round bar, I would: Get forge to temp bend bar back on itself and make sure it's properly aligned (I would probably cut halfway through at the bend first, your mileage may vary) Get it hot again enough flux to get between the pieces and scrape off any of the fluffies on the outside of where the weld would be. I use good ol borax. More heat flux a little more back in the heat. Get something to drink. Go to the bathroom. Talk to the wife... whatever is going to take 5 minutes or so for the heat to soak into the core of the metal. I'm looking for the flux to start rolling around on the piece. Just like tossing a little water in a hot skillet to make sure it's hot enough for pancakes I don't get sparks from my propane forge. From solid fuel I would expect a little sparking- but be aware that yellow outside doesn't mean yellow inside. bring the whole piece up to temp. take it out, firm but light taps- don't kill it. wire brush the heavy scale away. back in the fire flux wait hit it again.... rinse. repeat. the best tip I've been given is: less air. That promotes scale formation and will burn the steel (as mentioned above)

My problem with the show is that they start with a bad premise: hammers explode; gun barrels will make that banana peel effect like in a CARTOON (what's next- the myth that if you don't look down you don't fall off a cliff?!); swords cut through other swords. Then they test to the bad premise, show that the REAL myth does in fact happen (hammers chip and the pieces are lethal/very dangerous; gun barrels can split when you leave in the barrel sight; swords can be broken by another sword so that it looks like it's been cut.) And who wasn't watching and thinking "hmm... he just quenched that entire all-steel hammer. The neck is gonna snap like a twig before the head explodes"? But oh well, at least people are aware that blacksmiths are still around and it's not as easy as just throwing stuff in a fire :D

I like my panelbeater bag (heavy leather bag filled with sand) and a plastic forming mallet- one end with a large radius and the otehr with a small radius. I've made several of the shape you're describing for similar projects (sunflower, an iron 8-rayed Sun with a dished copper center, for example). For the texture, I took an autobody hammer with the very pointy cone end (almost sharp) and blunted it then lightly hammered the inside of the dish over wood to give it a dimpled appearance.

I vassilate all the time between feeling like I need to use my 1x42 belt grinder and then feeling guilty when I do, like I'm not doing it "the traditional way". But then I remind myself that if I was able to ship this thing and a generator back to any culture that made weapons on a mass scale (Celts, Vikings, Romans, Greeks- possible exception: the Japanese) they'd probably think it was a gift from their gods... and then they'd burn me at the stake for being a witch or something, but still. This is a tool that would have been used. Production has always been about numbers. More widgets per day is better. Look at the historic evidence that sandstone grind wheels (some of them huge) were used for shaping all manner of tools and weapons. I use what I feel will give the best end result. Most days that's hand filing and sandpaper because I don't ruin perfectly good blades using those tools (and I'm not good enough with the grinder for it to be really any faster or cheaper than files and papers). I usually save the grinder for polishing handles and such. I don't say our use of machines is not "traditional" but I will say they're not in keeping with the neo-tribal/primitive movement. Edge sharpening is technically stock removal, just to stoke the flames of the "you don't have to remove stock" argument :P

If you're making a lot of scale, I'd recommend working on the atmosphere in your fire. Probably too oxidizing (too much air). If you're in a solid fuel fire, make a lage pile of fuel and bring the blade higher in the pile (farther away from the air blast). If you're using propane, cut the air flow back some (usually quite a bit) and adjust the gas so you have an orangey-yellow flame coming out the front of the forge. Too much blue coming out is too much fuel and no flame is not enough fuel (or too much air). You don't need to melt the steel, just get it hot enough to work Most of the good bladesmiths I've watched generally have scale that leaves only a fine black powder on the anvil. Large flakes are too much, I think. In the "Historic Bladesmithing" video from Wareham Forge he does all of his pit removal and shaping prior to heat treat. I've done that on a few knives now and the end result is just a real treat to work with. The little bit of scale slides right off with some sand paper and I don't spend days trying to ruin a new file by filing out a pit (and a lot of my pits were caused by excess scale- killed two birds with one stone) The rest of my pits are caused by poor hammer control. In addition to simply getting better with the tool, I've taken to using a lighter hammer (4-6oz autobody hammers) to hammer out the dents before I start heat treating/ finishing work. Good luck!

:D That's good actually I was thinking I had TWO more books to buy, one being super-rare and the other more common. It's actually in the newest Lindsay Books catalog with the other blacksmithing books, so I may have to place an ordeer....darn.... Thanks for checking in and confirming the title.

Bealer's book is as trustworthy as they come.... He didn't write the book to be an instructional. It was written to preserve information about what was being made by blacksmiths from the middle ages to the early 20th C- covering as many topics as could be covered in as little space as possible. When he wrote it there was no ABANA or other local blacksmithing clubs- for all intents and purposes blacksmithing was dead. So he'd see something that had been forged and guessed at the construction if there wasn't better information available (i.e. there wasn't an "old timer" around to ask how something like that would have been made). He was an historian who, like a lot of folks in the late 60's/early 70's who were throwing off the modernity of mechanization and the birth of a global economy, loved old crafts and the old techniques for making things; he has another book about colonial wood crafting that is similar in approach to "...Blacksmithing". It was in large part because people were able to get their hands on a book like that that they figured they'd give it a try, and that's how we got to where we are. And it's an important work because there is a lot of information there, but it doesn't hold your hand and tell you how to go from raw material to finished product like most other smithing books do; that was never his intention. IRNSRGN: I found a book called "Plain and Ornamental Forging" by E. Schwartzkopf.... is that the same book? Complete Modern Blacksmith was written by a gent who needed to make custom chisels for his stone carving. So a lot of his projects are geared toward simple tool making and not "traditional" blacksmithing projects. I really like it though for his "out of the box" thinking and his love of scrounged materials :)

you're holding it wrong- heavy metal like that needs your best guitar pose! Awesome piece and I'd say you got the heavy as possible requirement taken care of Nice start.

Thanks! (and my inlaws live in Perry, too) To be fair, I can't really afford the more expensive screening materials.... If I could, I would have used something different but it's economics meets immediate need. Post pics when you're done

did I mention that the harware cloth was only $8 after tax? Just thought I'd add that after seeing the websites with $100 min order and min 18sq ft order @ $4.17/sq ft.

I used some 1/4" hardware cloth from Lowes and MIG welded it to the screen I made. Kind of a PITA to "stitch" on there (you learn very fine control doing this, I assure you ) but the effect is nice IMO and it does keep the sparks and cinders off the hardwoods. Check it out here http://www.alchemyforge.net/even-more.html

Technically it's illegal here, too. In my area the law gets enforced because teenage kids go to the beach, get drunk, play on the tracks and die when a train hits them or runs them off a trestle. No one ever blames the kids or the parents- it always results in the railway having to put up more signage, drive slower, add more fences, etc. No one ever thinks to check the beach for underage drinking... anyway... Now that that's out of the way excellent work on the "former fastener" knives. I really like the overall polished look and the twist at the transition area is a nice touch (usually the handle is twisted but smooth near the blade). Any guesses on what the carbon content is? How was it to forge out?

2# brass hammers can be had from harbor freight for less than $15. Copper hammers are just a few dollars more. Watch for the dark line to form on the piece being cut (if using a hardy tool) and then use tong or pliers to twist off the piece being cut- no hot metal flying all over. DON'T keep whomping on the piece- that's a good way to send hot metal onto someone's foot, into that plastic bucket in the corner, or somewhere else you don't want it to go or can't find it now that you've cut it off and need it.

Ok, I'll bite. Where does one readily get copper nitrate or ammonium cholride AND NOT get put on the NSA's "let's tap this guy's internet and cell phone" list? :D

Levi: I made a square drift out of some rebar. I drilled a hole in a piece of 1/4x1" and drifted the hole to just about the size that most of my nails are. Nice thng about the drift is that it is tapered and makes the bottom hole larger than the top hole (like in the anvilfire demo). I think the 2' piece of 1/4" rebar cost about $1 and the 1/4" strip was a piece of scrap. If you can make a nail you can make the drift. If you can use a drill press and drive a nail, you can make the header tool. Good luck!!

This question was brought up at Don Fogg's bladesmithing forum (http://forums.dfoggknives.com): what to do to protect yourself against litigation should someone get hurt at a class or demo? Whether it's a good student who makes a mistake or that goof off kid of your friend- how do you keep the law-dogs off your back? What if it's in your home? At a fairground or other place you've been invited to teach? Waivers are apparently useless as tort laws have established that "you can't sign away your right to sue" (although they can limit your liability). Insurance is ridiculously expensive- and that's if you can get an agent to even serioulsy discuss the issue with you... how many folks are going to pay the per-person charge that an insurance company is going to charge when they go to a "free" demo? Please, save the rants about our legal system. Many parts of it just plain suck and I think you'll be preaching to the choir. So instead of an "I hate lawyers" thread, I'd really like to get some info about what folks do to protect themselves. :mrgreen: Thanks folks!!