Stephen Olivo

sounds like a good plan. if you were closer i would lend a hand. you got the hardest part to fix or make. the rest is still pretty easy and youll wind up loveing it I am sure.

Nice looking anvil

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/antique-machinery-history/nice-post-vise-225241/

looks like your vice was run into or over and bent the front leg. your washers need to be placed correctly and then see how it works and looks. if i was home I would just show my vice parts to give you an idea.

Mark Aspery has 3 very well written and photographed books.

i vote for low vice/striking vice mount. You will come across plenty of whole vices and this one requires no modification.

never be ashamed of your path it is yours your own your presshius. and there will never be one to match it.

FE personally I wouldn't bother welding a horn to a dys anvil.  I would make one I just wouldn't weld it to a post or block anvil.  I am making a post anvil  for a new smith I have become friends with out of rail road track and including a plate with 2 hardy holes in it that way we can take like a half inch thick plate and make a horn that is held in with a wedge for when you might need one but otherwise can be kept out of the way.  Also makes it easier to move.  In this way too she will still have the horn even when she gets another anvil.  A horn can be a handy tool but really isn't that necessary as all bending or fullering can be done without one using the face of the anvil and its properly radioused corners.  You can always make a easy bickiron to serve you for those times you find you need one.  A separate stand that has one or more hardy holes in it would be better time spent then welding on a horn.  Brian Brazeal is a good teacher that deals with the use of all the parts of an anvil as bottom dies so is Mark Aspery to name a few.  The link I posted near the top is a copy of a anvil brian made to get people thinking of anvils differently.  With those radiuses and flats you can do a lot of work without having a horn.  

mine are around…3/4 of an inch  for nails like those used in my wood tool box. http://ipneto.deviantart.com/art/Chest-hardware-for-tool-box-212343003    

http://ipneto.deviantart.com/art/My-first-tool-box-212344734

Best to fit it to the nail sizes  your making above and beyond that.  Any smaller nails I would make a 3/4 thick one.  Just larger nails would benefit from a larger header.  You don't want the header to small or your hammer won't have any room to make the head without hitting the anvil or some other bothersome point.  Sometime here I will make a handle  with a replaceable size nail header.  Seen people do it with the bolt heads and plan on doing something like that some time just haven't gotten around to it yet.  

Wow with all my pictures I haven't yet taken a picture of the nail headers I have made...

Oh the space and the tools! (drool)

The sound is detrimental.  Wear ear plugs.  Deaden the sound with magnets or use silicone.  I have a wonderful anvil that doesn't ring (I still wear ear plugs) and it has a 80 to 90 percent return.  I just cringe every time someone mentions the ringing in a positive connotation.  The ringing is only good when your trying to get a dinner bell or a bell out of the piece.  I would recommend mounting it in such a way as to deaden the sound and still make sure that whenever your in your "shop space" especially with the impressionable youth that everyone wears every piece of ppe regardless of if there is any work being done.  Good habits are hard to form but bad habits can cost someone their life.  

Nice work.  Looks like you had a fun time.  Now lets see them in action :D  Thanks for sharing.

Oh that table is awesome.  Wish I had it and the space to keep it.  Thanks for sharing the pictures with us.  I love to see things like this that tell a story just in the pictures and get me thinking on what I would use them for.  Thanks again for sharing.

 

 

and where I started as reference 

http://s48.photobucket.com/user/nicrom/media/Picture053.jpg.html?sort=3&o=124

 

and where I am now

http://ipneto.deviantart.com/gallery/

 

Your way ahead.  Lets see you forge some stuff. Experiment.  You won't know until you start playing around what it is you really want.  

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/975709-block-anvil-inspired-by-Brian-Brazeal

varries from time to time as some people have more equipment available than others.  For instance I only take this hammer when teaching beginners blacksmithing classes with my guild. 

http://ipneto.deviantart.com/art/Hammer-from-the-Brian-Brazeal-class-283343787

 

But then there are also days and events where this is what I bring

http://s48.photobucket.com/user/nicrom/media/IMG_5376_zps3c780abf.jpg.html?sort=3&o=1

http://s48.photobucket.com/user/nicrom/media/IMG_5443_zpseaed914b.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0

Play around.  Experience is the only way to know and it will also depend on what your trying to do with it.  Some days I go through several 5 gallon buckets other days maybe a half.

There is a good book called flame bending/straightening that deals with how sheet and other things move when heated in a particular section.  I have been able to straighten things out by doing a little stick here or a little stick there but you have to have an idea of how the heat will affect the steel.  When you do it is like magic.  

I agree with steve.  Use as is on end.  Just make sure you have it solidly mounted.  Do hot work on it then it is completely fine as is better than going through all the effort.  Use your ASO for cold work.  I do a lot of chisel pearsing and have a chunk of a36 for it.  Thats the stuff you want to stay away from on that anvil.  Make a cutting plate for hot chisel work as you can dent the surface easily if you don't protect it from the chisel.  

lol feel like over thinking it?  I like the can idea if your going to forge a lot of blades in a row otherwise a can of water like the can your using just sitting near it to dip the face of your hammer in is plenty enough.  You don't need a lot of water just a little.  A plastic nipple on the end of a squeeze bottle would give you more control in the amounts you need without causing a puddle on or around your anvil.  I usually find a face dip rubbed on the anvil all that is required. 

 

OF course there is always the urge to see someone make a complicated machine to do something simple.  but in that case Pictures are required :D

lol fun link to read through.  I hadn't seen that one.  Thanks for sharing

Put up shelving and organized place a little better, Got my wood lathe working and messed around with it a little, worked on a bronze handle for a drawer, started a 2 hides in tanning, touched a box up with spray paint, worked on some wood blocks that will turn into handles… I hope drilled them out and ready for burn in, collected all the filings with my magnet wand, vacuumed up wood dust and shavings, ate, watched a friend play DOTA, re sowing up my leather gloves I hand made years ago for myself,  looking at designing some tools for my air hammer that I can use to head rivets, called the millwrights out of work line as its a new month, emptied out a plastic trash bin of water (leather stuff), and debating on working on more stuff in the basement.  probably do some more work on the bronze handles or a test piece for  texture on an engraving that I am working on.  

Most of the time working the hot steel on it dries it off pretty darn quickly.  Otherwise I might grab a rag or my apron but usually I don't even think about it.  Takes all winter for the face of my anvil to get just a tiny little bit of rust on it and that goes away as soon as I am done with one heat.  

I only dip the face in.  Its all that necessary to move the little bit of water necessary to make it work.

The loud bang is when water hits the hot steel and vaporizes blowing the scale off of the steel.  Its normal to hear it once in a while while forging this way. As you get better at doing this type of forging to keep heat longer especially in small pieces you can bounce the piece off the anvil.  Timing it so that the hammer strikes the hot steel at the moment the steel touches the anvil and then they both come off of the anvil.  Takes some practice but makes working heats noticeably longer.