Notice he is constantly fixing the bend on the anvil surface after a little bit of upsetting. Yes this works in real life. You want the heat on the very end and you want to constantly turn the bar as you upset to even out the upset and the moment you notice a bend in the steel you want to fix it. (kind of a 2 steps forward 1 step back sorta deal) Ideally as he upsets the head in the header you want to turn it and strike it each time from a different direction so you don't upset it to much to one side of the shaft of the rivet. You can also upset over the edge of the anvil by sliding the stock in your left hand over the anvil and just as it passes the far edge of your anvil having your hammer swing and hit it just over the far side of the anvil (this relates to the two cars hitting each other at 50 miles an hour as opposed to hitting a brick wall at 50 miles an hour it also saves your shoulder by absorbing the energy of the impact in the impact instead of in your shoulder. In all cases when upsetting you want to strike from a different direction each time to even out mistakes and upset it as evenly as possible, this can be done by either turning the stock as you strike it or walking around the stock as you strike it. You can also take two pieces of angle iron, clamp them in a drill vice with a piece of card stock between them and drill out the size of stock our going to use. To make one in that tool you just heat up the end and place it in the round hole between plates in the vice with the just under 1 and a half diameter length sticking up from the plates clamp the plates in a vice and upset the end down into a head by walking around it and striking the end. You can then clean it up with a cup tool (otherwise known as a rivet header) Upsetting is just that upsetting. You may be striking it to hard or the end might not be square with the shaft. The heat might be still to long for the size of shaft (think 1 and 1/2 diameter of stock = length of material for an upset usually just under is better) I suggest trying it with just a little bit of heat on the very end and light blows till you get the hang of rotating the stock and fixing the bends that happen. Many hardy tools can be made in this way with stock that is just over the hardy hole size and then tapered down to fit. As it is upset down into the hardy hole it creates a shoulder. That is just the same thing only with larger stock. Mark asperys first book I think has some good pictures and info on upsetting. I hope that helps.