anvil

I suggest a radius tapering from 3/8" to zero starting at the step back to ~the end of the anvil waist and leave the rest sharp.

Nice!

It is pretty obvious posts that your first stop is with your city/county officials and present them your ideas. When you know what you have to do, come back for advice on what we may think is the best.

To be serious, ~12'x12' is a good place to start for a small shop.

How big is your backyard? How small? Ive known blacksmiths who were 4'7", and he was a good smith.

Nice!

all good suggestions. a draw knife works for bark removal as well. No matter the tool, Do remove the bark.

360 around the post vice is manditory for me as well. I do most of my scrolling with benders and scrolling wrenchs. Its amazing how quick it gets to needing 10' of material to make a scroll. I used to require that in my setup for my anvil as well, but i rarely need to walk around my anvil anymore. So as long as i can work the center of a 20' bar across the face of my anvil im a happy camper. Thats 10' on each side of the face. I had a 16'×20' shop for a long time so i do understand efficiency of space. I consider a passthru a dirt cheap way to add "space". I had two permanent adjustable stands to support my iron. One inside at the pass thru, and one a few feet beyond my outside wall. And a cute lil pully operated door with hand forged hardware. It was purty to look at and easy to operate.

A good general rule of thumb is 4" of coke underneath your work and 2" above. This will consume the o2 from below and from above and make a good neutral heat wirhin the firepot. I much prefer a clinker ball to a grate. Then you can remove clinker and ash and not have to rebuild your fire.

Looks much better without the flat spot.

Billybones, on the other hand, it didnt cost you anything. Spend a little time wirh it and learn how to deal wirh it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I did a similar deal with a knife when i was a boy scout and 12 or 13. Still have the scar Lol, now you know just why it is called a Draw knife.

Great news

what Rashelle said.

put your forge in the corner and make an isosceles triangle with your anvil and post vice. you are in the middle. thats the most efficient setup. layout everything else around this setup.

Good luck. My thoughts are with you

also, its pretty simple 1: be comfortable 2: hit square If you are comfortable and not hitting square, then do as stated above, then learn to be comfortable. easy peasy. just because you are comfortable as a novice has nothing to do with swinging yer hammer\setting your anvil correctly. experience will make you comfortable.

The horn is most likely wrought iron, as has been said. Ive had good luck filling in with a torch and, believe it or not, coat hanger. Vee it if necessary, in order to get a complete fill. When done with this step, place the anvil on the rear side of the base and the heel. Your horn should be pointed sorta up. Now use a rosebud and take a good heat on the e d of the horn. Use two hammers. Use a heavy hammer and your normal hand hammer. Say a 2.5# hammer and a 8-10# hammer. Use the heavy hammer to back up your hand hammer and forge the tip of your horn back into shape.

For a good bit of information, do a google search for Lee Sauder. He has been doing this a long time and his website is a wealth of info.

Excellent!

No, a full body movement is critical to keeping healthy and prevent tennis elbow. Check your anvil height. A general rule is knuckle height with your arm along your side. Another way to check is put a piece of plywood on your anvil and hit it with your hammer. When the depression is the flat face of your hammer, you are good. Like a power hammer? Well sort of. End your blow with the hammer face parallel with the hammer face, for sure, and strike the same place on the anvil with each blow. Move your iron under the hammer. Dont move your hammer to where the iron is.

arftist, the ideal in my opinion is not a cold twist. The ideal is to recognize that there is a very big esthetic difference between a hot twist and a cold twist. Meaning the visual difference is huge. Thus, the ideal is to choose the proper esthetic for the job at hand.

this is your problem. your hammer should not be defining an arc, it should be striking the anvil in the vertical. meaning your blow should be straight up and down. thus, all things considered, the force is applied equally 360 degrees. swinging in an arc means you are pulling your blows the steel creates a parallelogram. make your blows vertical and practice

Yup, its pretty hard to list all steels in an article here. Thats why i stated Follow the Specs. As for A2, according to the specs,,, Do Not Normalize. So, there is really no comparison between normalizing technique and Do Not Normalize. For me, rule # 1 is Follow the Specs. When in doubt, or got a problem? Follow the Specs. If you are still having problems,,, refer to rule # 1. Genrally you will find that most steels follow the process above that I posted above,, IE as stated in the specs! A few steels specifically state In The Specs,,, do not normalize. Even fewer(that ive found) state(in the specs) to anneal twice. Once as i listed, and a second at a lower temp after heavy machining as this can add stress. Ive never found a steel that lists anneal before normalize. Exceptions welcome. Ive never found a steel that states not to anneal. Correct me if im wrong as there are a "ton" of steels out there! As far as normalize=air cooled. To clarify, bring your steel to normalizing temp then cool in open air where there are no drafts. Again, specific steels may vary, follow the specs. Lol, i hope ive made my ht routine clear. Just in case you miss the message,, Follow The Specs. Works for me

To clarify, the process for annealing is to reach annealing temp, then cool slowly in lime. Normalize is air cooled. The sequence for all is as i listed, which match both sources and all the spec sheets ive collected. He used to have a page detaiing how to heat treat to pass the ABS journeyman test. The process he laid out is the same as mine for all my heat treating. My personal belief is that, all things considered, you cant go wrong, following the specs for any given steel, industrial or otherwise, assuming the specs are from the manufacturer, not the distributor. And when in doubt, call their tech service. Personally I just dont accept that there is a major difference between industrial, blacksmithing, or knife smithing when heat treating. There are certainly nuances and a bit of extrapolation is needed, but the process, temps, etc work well for all three. I also recommend Verhoeven. Ive skimmed his book a few times, read it thru a couple of times and taken profuse notes o ce or twice as well. Ive not found where he nor Cashen actually vary from the spec sheets again, all things considered. Verhoeven spends far more time dealing with normalizing and barely touches on annealing. My gut feeling tells me that this is the reason that knife makers downplay, or dont anneal. I believe he does that because normalizing and grain growth are "healed" by normalizing and perhaps this is very critical for knifesmiths to be aware of. But i do not believe he imies that anneing is any less important to the process. However, ive found no statement or suggestion in his book that indicates not to anneal. If anyone can point out different, id love to have a page reference. Finally, my approach is more conventional or spec oriented and works for my ht needs than what we see for knifesmiths. This covers our blacksmith tools of all sorts, as well as stone and wood tools, dirt bars tempered for different types of soils/rocks and the few knives ive made. I make no claim that this is "the way", nor that normalizing 3 times, or any of the other ht variations do or dont work. Because This topic seems to often become quite heated, and i refuse to debate "better or worse", suffices to say, it works for me.