Ian

Mcraigl, I met Brent Baily at Alan Ball's Hot Iron Muster in Oz a while ago. He was the demonstrator on the day and ran a weeks course after. I still have a centre punch he gave me, still not needed to redo the point yet. Very nice bloke and an excellent tool maker who knows his stuff alright. He showed me some of his work and the pattern welded stuff was gorgeous.

Hi there, If it's a Brooks (or Brooks Vaughn) then it's an English made anvil, thats a long way from home Vaughns still make new cast steel anvils and you can order one and they'll ship it anywhere if your willing to pay. As to the decency of Brooks as a tool all I can say is I own three of them. 1 1/4 CWT, 1 3/4CWT and a 2CWT. The 2CWT gets used the most and is virtually mint, mine throws the hammer back at you and I do mean throws. Brooks have a serious ring if you hit them without hot iron in the way but magnets take the teeth out of them. I love mine, they have a great 'feel' to them. That said there's a few brands I'd like to try (Kholswa, Sodofors, Grunfors, Nimba etc) but I first found a Brooks and I liked them so when others turned up I grabbed them and wasn't dissapointed.

I use coke not coal but the lighting proceedure is the same for me. I screw up a few sheets of newspaper (round half dozen) into balls. I have a few sticks for kindling (about 1'' square say, 6 inches long, about a dozen). Light one ball of paper and toss it into the pot, stack on the others and the kindling. Start the blast on it's lowest setting, wait until the kindlings caught then scatter a few handfulls of fresh coke over the top, up the blast a little more and wait until you can see a few of the coke beans have started to go. Add more coke to cover the fire and up the blast a little more, if needs be open the fire slightly so the smoke catches and burns. Within five minutes you're ready to forge.

Mike, if the tumble dryer don't work then go to your local auto wreckers and rip out the fan from a car heater. It'll have a three or four speed control built into the wiring loom to the dash controls. It'll run from a 12v Battery or a charger and provide plenty of air. It'll just take time to seperate it from the car, but you can take some of the ducting as well. It should be pretty cheap too. hope this helps

Nicely done version of a leaf, I'd happily put it up for sale after a demo

I do for the UK, but not for the USA. We found our supplier through an Automobile Radiator Repairer, they use it to repair the matrix etc.on car radiators.

excellent step by step, makes me confident the book will be a good one Mark.

You can buy the tin and flux premixed. Paint the item with the mix and then hit it with a heat gun. A blow torch will work too but it's far easier to burn the tin. The heat gun works much better.

Dave, for the smaller widths just cold chisel your line and snap it in the vice, or put a square bar under it and pop it with a flatter while your stood on the other bit. I've 'cut' a bit of plate both ways.

I agree, the horn of the anvil is an obvious fuller, I've seen several blokes use it that way for roughing out points etc.

Alwin, If your hitting with your right hand rolled (so your hitting with the right sided face of the hammer) then the thumb that would be parallel to the hammer shaft is now on top of the hammer as it strikes. As you point out, with a rectangular handle the thumb then absorbs the impact. Not as bad as those folks who do it all the time though. I like hammers with an almost round handle for just this reason, my thumbs always off to the side even if I decided to hit with the side of the hammer. It's nothing to do with the tightness of your grip that keeps the blow true even with an entirely round handled hammer. The blow is struck and the energy imparted so even if the hammer head turns afterwards it's already done the job. A fairly light grip can control this sort of movement. I learned that from a Norweigan Toolmaker called Jon Dhalmo who said to move the metal anywhere you wanted you turned the face only and swung with the face already turned, not trying to twist yourself. He was also dead set against any kind of slipping blow, and yet I was shown a technique by Brian Russell for making sharp square corners without thinning by mainly using slipping blows. Both are world class Masters, who's right and wrong? As to your second question I'll pose you one instead. If you imagine a ball and chain swinging around and the kinetic principles involved and then imagine a hammer attatched to a hand and arm etc I'd ask which is more important, hieght or speed? Hofi has based his system upon among other things biomechanics, and if you follow that then you can't go far wrong. Everyones swing is in constant change, by dint of being a movement, but they follow general patterns that can be learned. For fine light work you might only use your wrist, but for heavy work you'd be using your entire body.

Trick from Jnr I believe. Find a suitably thick piece of angle iron about 3 or 4 inches long. Cut down the spine half way and bend the flats out to 90 degrees. Drop into your hardy hole first then put the hardy tool in. It resizes the hardy into a corner.

Halleluyah!!! Sing it from the mountain Brothers! One has seen the light! LMAO :D

Beautiful, I really like both pieces

Not to sound condescending mate, but if you don't know that then are you really sure you should be messing around with propane?? Potential Darwin Award there bloke. On my system you turn the regulator anti clockwise to increase pressure and clockwise to turn the pressure down/off. Same with the valve on the propane bottle itself. Anti clockwise opens the valve, clockwise closes it. That said: I SERIOUSLY RECOMMEND ATTENDING A LOCAL GROUP BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE. ANY FLAMMABLE GAS CAN BECOME EXPLOSIVE IN THE RIGHT CONDITIONS. LACK OF KNOWLEDGE WILL ONLY EVER INCREASE THE CHANCES OF MEETING THOSE 'RIGHT' CONDITIONS.

The computer fan might not have the 'guts' for a solid feul forge, so, just as a suggestion, try taking a ride to your local car wreckers. Find a rear shunt and open the bonnet, look around inside (usually towards the windscreen/shield inside the engine bay) and you'll find a blower that will more than do the job. Every car has a hot/cold air blower these days. With a bit of extra work you can get the wiring loom so you have at least a three speed switch to work it too. It's 12v so you can run it off a car battery(making it ideal for mobile forges) or car battery charger. Reasonably quiet while running and with all the guts you need. Just a thought (and one I keep telling people about).

I was lucky to get the chance to do some travelling and I met a LOT of Blacksmiths, well over a hundred in fact. I actually worked with over 30 in their shops around the world. I've learned from 6th Generation Master Blacksmiths in Holland to Sammi Blacksmiths in Sweden. I've been to some of the best Colleges in Europe dedicated to Smithing and briefly assisted some of the living (and sadly now passed away) Legends. I was incredibly lucky. I enjoyed every second of it ALL but I tell no lie when I say I gained the most enjoyment from my time in Australia. There's this bloke in Wesburn, dry as a bone, sharp as a knife, who has an incredible talent for making you THINK about things. He's as keen to figure things out as you are so you never feel like your being lectured, and he's a lot better than he thinks he is, or is willing to let on (I say this with MY experience of Blacksmiths). He's an all round top sort and one of two hidden gems in Oz. Stick with that bloke and he'll take you far Bully, a lot farther than you think and he'll admit.

I was born in England in 1975 and yet I know who Quick Draw McGraw is, and who Snagglepuss is, and who Deputy Dawg is, and Bullwinkle Moose too for that matter with his mate Rocky the flying Squirrel. We got a lot of the american cartoons here when I was growing up from Warners Loony Tunes to the Hanna-Barberra stable. Tom and Jerry were favourites as a kid, as was the Roadrunner and Coyote (Tex Avery was a genius). When I was a teenager the Japanese cartoons came in, redubbed into English and often with a totally different story from the japanese original too. Transformers, Ullysees, Lost City of Gold etc. Now there's a good mix from England, America (I'm sorry but Sponge Bob ROCKS) and japan, if you've got the cartoon network then your laughing. Ah if I could spend all day in front of the telly..............

Having reread the entire thread I'm drawn to the following conclusion: Although there is no true 'one size fits all' ratio for hammer vs anvil there is a definate and common sense approach that can be taken: If it 'LOOKS' wrong, then chances are it 'IS' wrong. Your biggest concern should be ensuring the work and NOT the anvil takes a beating irrespective of the size of the hammer. As for anvil size: The function of an anvil (IMO) is to provide a SOLID and IMMOVABLE mass for hot steel to rest on whilst being struck with the hammer. This is important because the more immovable the mass in the anvil is the more kinetic energy can be imparted into the piece being worked. You have to imagine the hot steel is acting as a shock absorber when struck, taking the kinetic energy from the hammer and deforming under the blow as energy is REFLECTED from the mass of the anvil back into the piece instead of moving through. Although some kinetic energy will be lost to the ground the larger portion will be used to deform the steel. In theory if you had a section of 4'' square bar four feet long and buried it on end you would have a larger mass under your hammer than if you used an anvil on a stand with a 4'' face. You'd move more on the square bar if everything else was equal. A personal observation: I was out in the yard today forging coat hooks on my 2cwt Brooks anvil. It stands on a composite wooden stump thats exactly the size of the anvils footprint. Where I work the ground is a little uneven and the anvil was rocking maybe a mm or so. I found that if I struck near the horn the anvil rocked a tad and rang a lot, but if I struck just off the middle of the face on the heel end it didn't rock at all and it barely tinged. In fact it produced a dull boom from the concrete the stump was resting on and my piece moved a lot more. Everything felt 'solid', exept the iron. I reckon thats what I should be after ALL the time.

Steve, why are you apologising? There's no need to. All you're doing is showing what you have, what you work with, and how you find it works Good on you for doing it, more should

Matt, I pulled this from over the road at Anvilfire.... ''Quote has been reworded: The anvil and hammer should be of reasonable size for the work being done. A ratio of 1:50 hammer weight vs anvil weight is the norm. This translates into a 2 pound hammer for a 100 pound anvil." part of a larger article on selecting an Anvil. It's an ineresting read. I have deleted the quote from the Anvilfire site as Jock Dempsy of Anvilfire has stated that NO amount of material or text can be copied from Anvilfire and used on another site. I have however rewritten the material and inserted it as a reworded quote

Very nice rose, I like it. I'm guessing its a composite piece as opposed to one piece? Good looking table too. One of the big challenges is getting good shots of your work, essential to build up a portfolio that sells you. I'd try extra, 'soft' lighting or a tripod to eliminate hand shake (use the timer after you've set up the shot) and a slower exposure. It'll absorb more of the ambient light and show the details better. A good photo taken from what you think is the most flattering angle will be your only record of the piece after it's sold or given away so it's worth getting the best result you can. Sometimes it's even worth having the work done professionaly, but as I'm not rich I'm learning how to take good pictures instead.

Or you could knock up a handcrank blower using an old bycycle for bits and some sheet metal. Sure there's something in one of the free pdf books (the African one I think) but it's not that complicated a design.

Bargain! Thanks for the heads up. You know I reckon a new thread on 'Deals and Steals' would be a great idea, like you say, even though you've got it, doesn't mean someone else isn't looking. We'd all save.

I did a bit of digging too, Stourbridge is the name of a town about 120 miles away from London, near Birmingham. There's records of some other well known anvil and metalworks being in the general area (Vaughns, Peter Wright and Sons etc). I found reference to the name Nash on the national archives website here in the UK that put them in Stourbridge from at least 1850, so your Anvil could well be over 100 years old. This is a document reference I came across that I'd like to see first hand.... [no title] 705:260/4000/848 19th cent. 1 item Contents: Lithograph of Broadwell Forge and Constitution Hill Works, Peter Wright and Sons' Vice and Anvil Works, patentees of the solid box vice and solid horn anvil. Dudley.