Drew

I have no particular attachment to any brand or the other, except trying to understand where it's worth putting your money. An old peddinghaus in unused condition just happened to pop up around here, so I was curious how people felt about that. I suppose it's the mass-vs-quality question. Would you rather have a fine 100 lb anvil, decent 200 lb, or a gigantic block of 4140? This time around I have to keep it under 1000 bucks, and preferably a bit under that. $160 for a 175 lb anvil is awesome, though.

Several years after selling all my stuff, I'm living in a place where I can finally start developing a shop again. I'm only really interested in forging carpentry tools, hammers, working knives, etc... very little ornamental work. So, the anvil options I have are (looking for a vote here...) 1) A 50kg PFP (peddinghaus) single horn in mint condition showed up for 500. 2) That much money would buy a LOT of unhardened 4140 plate. 300 lbs or so. Which should I do? Either will be a downgrade (had a 200 lb OWA bulgar before) but anvil prices have shot up a ton since then. I suppose option 3 is "Save up more and buy something else."

Does anyone know what these are made of? I like them a good deal, but I've always been curious, and I've heard about three different rumors as to what the steel (or malleable iron) is.

Yes, I suppose I hope that I connect with some other folks working in the area while I'm on this website. Truthfully, because of my own moving, I've been without a place to work for almost a year, so information gathering is about all of the "forging" i get to do these days. Thanks!

and just out of curiosity, Mr. Hofi... how big is that one hammer of yours? Not that it matters... :)

couldn't agree with you more... bigger solves most all problems. However, how much did that awfully huge refflinghaus of yours cost? :::shudders:::

No reason to apologize for the length of the article, Mr. Hofi... quite plainly I find it incredible that these online communities allow this kind of information exchange across the world. Luddite though I may be, I'd be lost without this here internet thing. It must be a little frustrating some times to have so many people, most of whom have little real exposure to your teaching, commenting on it nevertheless. I like to imagine you having a beeper that goes off loudly every time someone on this forum says "yeah, my brother done invented those funny little hammers twenty years ago!" Guiding as opposed to holding the hammer... I'd love to hear more about that... this holding and gripping and slinging thing is what I always imagine long handled and light weight hammers to be all about. They can't do it with mass, so you have to sling them like a whip very hard. Who knows. thanks. As for use of the pein... well, old habits die hard I guess. I never had one and as such don't know what I'm missing!

here's how I understand this. Correct me if I'm wrong! Cause I probably am! A perfect anvil will not budge even a bit when impacted with the heaviest force it will ever see, and will elastically rebound the hammer with perfect efficiency. Secondary considerations are resistance to deformation, usable shape, and simply being able to produce, move, and afford it. 1) The first consideration is simply the way masses affect each other, based on inertia, in a collision. We're thinking here essentially of spheres of an unknown material colliding in space. It's about conservation of momentum. Two equal masses will split the difference of their collision roughly 50 50... think of pool balls. The more mass one object has, the less it will be deflected and, because of the conservation of momentum, the OTHER mass will have to "take up the slack" and be deflected more. An ideal anvil would have infinite mass, and as such remain completely immobile while the hammer bounced back at exactly the same velocity that it had on impact. In the real world, there is a practical limit of efficiency here that's, I think, about 97-98%... stupid friction. Over on anvil fire it had been mentioned that only considering mass, a 50/1 anvil to hammer ratio was a good "point of diminishing return." In other words, much past this ratio and you stand to gain imperceptibly little return... a good stopping point considering that you will have to pay for and move the anvil. 2) Shape... this one is still in space, however... now the anvil has to have a useful shape. The variable here is rotation... that is, the rotational inertia and leverage forces that act on an anvil that is NOT a perfect sphere. In normal work, you typically are exerting force on the anvil that will NOT pass straight through it's center of balance and consequently exerts forces to TWIST the anvil. The closer to the central axis you are, the less leverage you exert to twist it. Also, the more mass an anvil has as a whole, the more inertia it will have in rotation. This means, essentially, that the more "blockey" and "compact" the mass is (drawn in towards its center of balance), the less an anvil will be able to be rotated by the hammer. In diminishing order... sphere, block, nimba anvil, farrier anvil, long rod, sheet of plate. 3) Elasticity... now we have objects made of a material... steel. Steel is, in this context, best visualized as rubber. It's bouncy, ringy, it vibrates and shimmies. This is both your friend and enemy as far as effectiveness goes. On the one hand, it has the capacity to "bounce" energy back from itself in a way that something more inert, like a big block of granite, does not. This is also why clamping an anvil down to something so tight that it ceases to ring or vibrate will also negatively effect rebound... it's "springiness" has been dampened. The more steel there is directly under a hammer blow... the more steel there is inside the roughly cone shaped cross section of the impact force as it moves like a shock-wave through the steel, the more this springiness will work. Moreover, these "shock waves" do not effectively conduct through a change of material or a bond that isn't essentially seamless and molecular... this is why sticking a little anvil super securely onto a heavy, even steel, base doesn't help hammering efficiency. Anything bond that would affect the "resonance" of the anvil will not transmit energy in a way that will effectively combine the two masses. So, imagine how useless 200 lbs of 1/8th inch plate would be as a work surface... which brings us to the "tuning fork" problem. Because of steel's elasticity, if an anvil has parts that are spread out and unsupported (imagine a long, 1/2" diameter steel rod), they will dissipate and absorb impact energy in the form of a useless vibration... that of a tuning fork. Again, we're back to blocky anvils being better for this... and this is why the skinny cross sections of nearly every part of a farrier anvil (designed for a high work surface/mass ratio) will NOT be as effective in returning/maximizing hammer force as a much blockier nimba/sawyer/post type anvil. What do ya'll think... is this long-winded non-sense a good start for talking about this?

I really do mean to learn this Hofi technique, although I can't quite afford a class right now. Mr. Hofi... if you'll come to my house I can promise you all the cookies you could eat! As for french hammers... I thought that the peen WAS actually in the center of the hammer, but that the mass was not balanced top to bottom. I think I heard something about this changing the way the hammer rebounds and how shock is transmitted to the handle... and a little something about it making the stock easier to see while using the peen, although that makes less sense to me. As I think about it, though... it would probably just be good mojo to save the money and buy something that a person made. It would be in keeping with the ethic. Big Blue is maybe 100 miles from me.

that was a bit long winded. However, I will say that regardless of what I do here, a discussion/explanation of how anvil weight is important would probably help a lot of people starting out. Things like... why is mass important? Why can't you take a 10 lb anvil and just bolt it to something immoble? Why would a post anvil cause a more inelastic collision than a london pattern of the same mass? Why are farrier anvils too "springy" for heavy smithing? In other words, there do seem to be a lot of misconceptions (including my own) about where the mass should be and why... and I know a lot of folks are busy trying to figure out how to get a smaller amount of anvil to perform like more.

Well, Jayco... that sounds like just a fine idea. I myself tried really heavy lag bolts and chain, and found that eventually the lag bolts would start tearing up the wood in the stump just enough to loosen up and eventually to strip out too much to keep clamping it down. Too bad, as I thought I had finally come up with something bullet proof. I haven't entirely given up on the idea, though I may give up on the stump itself. Glenn... this would be a fabulous time to talk about or have some links to information about how anvil effectiveness works. It's all just a bit confusing, and to be honest one of the first ideas I had when I wanted to buy an anvil (the block of mild steel I have now WAS my anvil at the time) was to get a little 70lb farrier anvil and do just what you're talking about. The variables are a little complicated, but I eventually gathered enough info to know that I would need an anvil big enough to essentially act on its own and that the "base" and the "anvil" could never have their masses combined in such a way that the rebound and ultimately forging efficacy of the anvil would increase as though it were simply a larger anvil. I guess what I'm asking about here is simply... now that I have an anvil that, by itself, is big enough (if such a thing exists) to do what I need it to do... how do I begin to really get the base it sits on right. My thought with gluing it to a large plate was simply to give it a heavy, broad, and flat "foot" to sit on. What I would mainly be hoping to accomplish was to keep the anvil from jumping so much when I work on the horns, and perhaps to shut the anvils ring up a bit. Aside from that, having a large flat surface would make the thing much easier to bolt down to whatever I use for the rest of the base/stand. I'm thinking, I suppose, of something like the feet on a hofi anvil... which looks to me like a 200 lb anvil with some big, low, heavy feet. Granted, this may not improve the hammer rebound, but it sure seems like it would stop some of the jumping and hopping that even heavy anvils like to do. Then again, I certainly do wish someone would make a 500 + lb. anvil that didn't have such a huge face on it. I work sitting down, so much longer than the one I have (branco bulgarian) would be a bit of a pain for me.

Ok, so I have a 90 kg anvil and a big block of mild steel about 3x10x20 inches... I would guess it's a hair over 100 lbs just from how it feels to pick up. I was wondering if there were a way to really securely attach the anvil to the steel block in such a way that it would functionally help the anvils stability. Granted, forge welding is out of the question. I'd prefer not to try and weld the anvil at all. So... caulk, JB Weld, epoxies... etc. Would this do what I think it would? Would it just make the thing harder to move and not really help its stability much?

It's actually from before smithing. It's from lifting sixty pound boxes over my head in a tight space... there is simply no OSHA approved way to do it, and a few times in particular I over extended them when the box went its own way, so to speak. I ended up with athletic tape around each one of them (different occasions) for a few months, and since then they're just a little fussy. But, it does mean that as I'm learning smithing I'm invested in learning how to bypass hurting them. Perhaps the heavy hammer preference I've had so far has something to do with simply using my wrist less.

Oh, and this is another relevant issue I think. Are you saying (Mr. Hale) that a lighter hammer is less abusive to your body? The larger issue of ergonomics is one I care a lot about... both of my wrists are pretty easy to hurt from some work related injuries. I've always found that a heavier hammer and a lighter grip... less WHIP WHIP WHIP seems to keep me happier, though perhaps I do get physically tired a little quicker. Something about the way a heavier hammer "sinks into" steel seems to make everything bounce around, jerk, and twist less... Then again, I'm still absolutely at the point where if someone said "what you're doing is stupid and you'll regret it in five years," I wouldn't be at all surprised. So I'm pretty open to this conversation, too.

Well, personal preference it is then. In helping me decide, I'll provide my address and if everyone would kindly mail me their favorite hammer so that i might try it for myself. In all seriousness, I'm simply wondering how it happens that the vast majority of people seem to like a 2 lb. german. Choices seem to be 1) face shape (round/square) 2) Balanced/face heavy 3) general weight relative to size of work, myself preferring heavyish I will add how much I've noticed that the handle shape seems to effect the, well, experience of a hammer. Sometimes a lighter hammer with an awkward handle will feel more cumbersome and unwieldy than a heavier one with a more agreeable handle... which is perhaps again personal preference. There seems to be a certain combination of variables that produces a "just right," sweet spot type of feeling. I'm wondering what they are. Oh, and are MOB hammers any good? Thanks to everyone.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have much experience with French pattern hammers... enough to tell me why no one seems to use them? I'm looking into getting some real hammers after a while of using redressed home improvement store sledges. I'm pretty excited. In the running are french, german, and hofi type hammers. Truthfully, I don't use the peen much, and the tom clark rounding hammers would be perfect excepting that they're kinda expensive for me to just try them. I'm guessing the balance and broad square face of the french hammers would appeal to me, but I notice it seems to be like a straight peen... most people don't like them. For whatever it's worth, I've always preferred short handles and heavy heads... the hammer I use most is a 4 lb sledge with a slightly convex, square face and a flat, round face. Handle is perhaps 8" Oh, MOB and Peddinghaus... thoughts on them? thanks everyone

I would love to know if anyone has any leads on japanese blacksmithing as a more general discipline (in other words, I don't care too terribly much about swords)? In other words... where would you find "the art of blacksmithing" / "New edge of the anvil" in its japanese form? Oh, and of course, preferably in English so I can read it. :)