Just want to introduce myself here, say thanks to all the people on here sharing their knowledge and experience, and show some pics of my anvil setup- which is really inspired by many of the things I read here. My names Ben (which you can obviously see from my profile yet I feel weird not saying it) and basically started becoming interested in blacksmithing when I became interested in spoon and bowl carving about 3 plus years ago. I watched a video of Robin Wood Carving a spoon from a chunk of firewood... in his living room no less and I was pretty sure I had to try it. acquiring the tools i needed (some I just wanted =) proved to be more expensive and complicated than I thought. There aren't that many quality, made to order hook knives or bowl adzes and all the references I had come to trust kept pointing me to different blacksmiths in the USA and some in the UK and Sweden most of which had wait lists that was foreign territory so I continued to read, watch videos and prep and modify the tools I could acquire.
Funny enough, my indecision led to the all to often thought I have "I wonder if can i make one?" Once I started reading and watching videos of different blacksmiths I was pretty sure i was going to have to try this as well. This is how I ended up here. To transition my story to the blacksmithing part- I did finally buy my first hook knife from North Bay Forge and boy did I feel like 8 years old again waiting for that present to arrive. When it did it didn't disappoint, that was the sharpest and longest edge holding knife I had ever used at that point so naturally I wanted to know more and maybe one day be able to make tools designed for the way I like to work that would be up to my standards of functionality and edge holding ability.
So that's some of the background on what caused me to start attempting to make my own tools. I do say attempting because the ones I've attempted still need tweaking. I am still very much a newbie and I love when I get 2 or 3 hours in the evening to work. Just getting some sort of anvil was quite the endeavor. I have let go of finding a real anvil for the time being. After getting the forklift chunks ( i have another still - not sure what to do with it) I came up with the idea to set the anvil in concrete as the pics below indicate.
Technically this is my 2nd anvil. It's 4140, confirmed by my friend Luke who works in a forklift attachment testing department. I hope the pics speak for themselves but in case you don't recognize it that is one of those helium balloon tanks. The forklift tine is set into the high strength concrete around 10 to 12 inches below the rectangle steel tube The dimensions are 4”x6”. I wanted a round base for “roll-a-ability”. The bottom is cut out of the tank and to be honest I am not sure why I did that now. I wasn't sure that pouring all the concrete down from the top of the rectangular 4x6 would all settle evenly in the upper shoulders of the tank and I really couldn't access it or see what was going on from the top. So first poured from the bottom and spread it all in the uppermost round parts and all along the inside walls to make sure there were not places where there could be gaps. I then attached with screws through the pink cylinder into the edge of the plywood base. I work on asphalt and so I thought the concrete would stick to the plywood better and there would be less shock with a wood covered base than letting the exposed concrete be the resting surface directly over asphalt. I might over complicated it but it's done and it works for me and has a decent rebound.– I didn't realize how little I had on my 215 lb chunk you can see under that yellow angle iron in the pic. Got that from a retiring machinist in St. John for $15. I was giddy for weeks after that find. Not really sure what to do with that now be honest. Any ideas?
Anyways I hope my version of a post anvil is helpful. I know you guys love pictures here (as do I) and any comments or questions and experience is much appreciated.