quint

That is a great sword that guy made, thanks for posting those videos. Makes me wish I lived out of town, had a power hammer, and much more time on my hands.

Thanks guys, Robert I played a little bit with the hammer, took off that clear coat or whatever it is but wasnt sure how much or what to take off of the hammer. Ill take a look at some other smiths hammers online and see about maybe working on it some more.

Well finally got a chance to use the forge and my new anvil for the first time. One thing I realized right away is that I need to shorten my anvil stand by about 3", I need real tongs (using channel lock pliers at the moment so lost a few arm hairs), and I need another hammer besides the 4lb lowes special for doing thinner stuff. Other then that it was alot of fun actually getting things to kind of shape how I wanted them. Both pieces started out as 3/16" 1084 that were stock removal attempts that didnt turn out right so I stopped working on them and there was plenty of metal left to play with. Started narrowing down the profile on them. The big one I dont like the handle and may end up changing a few things on it. Thanks for looking.

Great advice thanks guys.

Would that be just like a wedge or an L shape piece of metal to take up the extra space?

Just wanted to update that after taking a disk to the sides and getting the old paint off around the stamping I was able to make out that it is a sodofors. Says it on both sides from what I can tell. Thanks again for all the help.

I picked up what we determined to be a sodofors anvil for sure after I cleaned it up some. I measured the hardy hole and I think it is 1 1/4" and all the tools that go in there are either 3/4 or 1". Will the 1" tools work ok with my anvil. Sorry this may be a simple rookie question but I am just starting out and dont really know much, I am sure there will be plenty more. Thanks all.

Thanks guys, cleaned it up a little today just took a wire wheel to it and got most of the big rust off. I filed the end of the horn just enough to remove the mushroom that had been pounded on there. There was just a tad of mushrooming effect. Couldnt really make out much more on the lettering and numbering. Did find a 5 stamped in the back of the heel and found that someone had taken a engraver and written "coursG 604..." on the side of the horn. Barely see it though. Looks pretty good overall. One thing on the top there are a few decent size nicks at the edge of it. Probably just leave these alone I assume. Biggest one is about 1/8" across and the rest are pretty small. Now cant wait to start making some stuff. Whats the best recommendation for quieting the ring a bit, have heard a chain tied around.

Thanks guys. I was pretty happy once I found out I could use it for my intended purposes. So it is a Sodofors then, thought it looked similar to one I had scene a pic of but its so hard to tell for me.

Hello everyone, I am new here and have been scouring around this site for a little bit. I got into knife making a little while back and well one thing led to another and found myself picking up a $300 anvil I saw on craigslist. Now what I know so far. I assume the horn is the front for description purposes. On the left side of the body I can see stamped into it "200lbs" and "1928" and below that "4", on the front left foot (think thats what it is called) is also stamped "1928" and what looks like "3" below it. On the right side of the body I can barely make out a stamp marking "SWEDEN" there is something else stamped above that but I cant really make much if any out of it I think one part says O or 0 not sure but other then that its too hard to read. Atleast with all the black paint on the body. Still planning on cleaning it up and hopefully smoothing out any of the rough spots. Top is pretty flat and doing a hammer drop test it gets what I would consider really good recoil and a nice ring to it. Then again my only real experience with smithing is buying this anvil and making a forge for HT my blades. Thanks a ton for any info you all may have.