FieryFurnace

That's what makes video-editing software so awesome. You can actually make youself look smart and well organized when you aren't! LOL

I appreciate all the compliments guys! I really do! It's been really nice having the striking anvil. I made a cupping tool in it just the other day and my first top swage ever on it today!

Whatever "swage block" set up you use, make sure your block of steel cannot fall off. Put a lip of some sort around your "swage block" system. Make sure the block of steel cannot move so much that the hole you are drifting no longer lines up with the hole you are drifting over. We had a third hand to help with alignment! If you don't, you will want to prevent all movement. If you don't set it up where your block can't move and get misaligned, you will loose time, you will loose heat, and you will regret it. Get a big sledge! The one I was swinging was 11 with the handle and Chase's was 8 without the handle....probably around 9.5 with the handle. It would have been much better with two 12 pounders or bigger. If you can get a 16-20 that'd be great. You've got time.....that piece has enough thermal mass to retain it's heat for quite some time. You don't need a baby sledge that you can swing 90 MPH. You have a lot of resistant mass that you have to plow through with the drift and you need something with umph behind it (besides your arms,) to get the job done. Swing a whomping sized sledge slowly and steadily! Bolt your entire system down. Whatever you are drifting on bolt it down to a good stand, and then bolt or stake that stand down. My system was nothing more than two big RR ties nailed together. I did not bother bolting it down, however, with just yourself, you will love the increased efficiency in having a solid mount. Make two of each size drift you use! My drifts overheated and ended up upsetting slightly in the hole. Drive one drift half through, tap it sideways a couple of times, knock it out, flip the steel, drive the second drift from the other side. It will save you the time of having to cool your one drift down during a heat. Drill a 7/8-inch hole for a 1-inch square hardy. Drill 1 and 1/8-inch for a 1.25-inch hardy hole. It'll save you some work! You will probably also want a 4 or 5 pound short handled sledge (or hand hammer) to start the drift. Set it, then drive it! Last tip! Find someone else to help you! :D

Hi Chris! Did you get the videos from here? Sorry I have your email written down on my welding table and I keep forgetting to bring it back to the house with me. :D

Ohhh I like! I may give that a try, but use heavy FB and split it out! Very nice idea!

Thanks Brian and Gaylan! I would have went with a larger size of anvil stock, but I was uncertain what size stock my forge would be able to heat up. I didn't want to make the stand, get Chase to the shop, and have everything ready, and be unable to heat the stock. As it was, I could have gone with a piece twice that big without any problem. However, this one is more than fine for now. Oh and Brian, send Lyle up with the 30 pound sledge........I'm upsetting a large sledge hammer!

I need to make a smaller set of top and bottom fullers. Mine were border-line, too big for this size hammer. Problem is I don't have ANY top swages!

That was back in March during the first days of my class with Brian where I went for zero striking experience to all day striking for hardies and hammers. It took me a while to uhhh get in the "swing" of things. Here are the pictures of the hammer with a handle. Chase did the handle job as we ran out of time in my shop. It looks like he did a good job. I did not have sanding strips so I couldn't soften the edges of the hammer eye. (Hence the wood shavings starting to peel at the base of the eye.) BTW Chase, Ace hardware carries those sanding strips...I just found out today. If you have to rehandle some time, soften the edges of the eye up a bit. Thanks to Chase for the pictures!

As I recall I spent a month striking not too long ago! I think I've got the endurence too! :D Without arm pain!

Hmmm more lead in your britches = more stress on your arm, which I think you mentioned was hurting today??? Less lead in my britches and more in my hammer.......my arm is feeling great! I've been hand tapering 1.25-inch solid round shock resistant axle with my five pound hammer. My arm is fine! :D ROFLOL

Yeah it didn't go as fast as I'd hoped! Perhaps if Chase had only brought a REAL sledge......LOL No! I, as the director, just ran into some stuff I didn't expect and that slowed us down. I think I could get a second one in two heats!

Aww you're just 10 hours away! Swing on by! I'll help! Uhhh Chase.......I know why! :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WQtcRqKkPw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BQt7yqTPnE&feature=youtu.be

LOL Did you ever think about why I angle some of my photos??? Soooo you don't see all the CRAP everywhere! :D

OK! I've got two 5-gallon buckets of used tractor oil! I'll have to unbolt to put lock washers and lock-tight on my anchors anyway!

Alright here are some photos! I found, assembled, wired, and attached this blower to my forge. Of course it was way overkill being a 12-inch squirrel cage, but I did some modification and made it work. The result was I heated a 2x5-inch piece of metal to really REALLY hot in 30 minutes. It was quite foggy this morning so I snapped this picture on the way to the shop. OK OK get on with! Let's see the anvil! There are about 70 pounds of steel plus the sand in the legs which is probably another 20 or so! Here are some close ups! The hammer we made was sort of Chase's payment for helping out. So, I didn't have a lot of extra time to do some serious grinding. There is still some work to be done! There are some deeper dents where Chase or I missed a blow! These will be filled with weld and then ground! Don't you just HATE straight edges! :D Happy me! Hammer time! We didn't get a pretty plug, but we got a really pretty hole! :D Chase got quite a bit of video on the hammer and maybe he'll grace us with some footage, but as we were pressed for time, I did not get a whole lot of pictures. We turned out a nice 2.6-pound hammer. I would have wowed the cheeks out quite a bit more, but like I said, time was short, and being the first hammer Chase has made, I didn't want to kill him either! He has the pictures of the completely finished product ( - the handle,) so I'll get him to post those! I'll get the videos in a day or two!

Hi there Mr Gaddis! I remember you! :D I think it took us about two hours, maybe a hair more, from the time we started to the time we bolted the finished product down to the concrete! We hit a few snags, simply because I've never worked with anything anywhere near this size. It took a total of 5 or 6 heats to get what I wanted! Pictures will be posted soon and both Chase and I got several videos so we'll put them together and get it posted ASAP! I did fill the legs with sand, but I didn't use oil! I thought I remembered y'all having said something about oil, but I didn't know what it was for. Oops! Next time maybe! I did enough finish grinding to the face of the striking anvil for Chase and I to forge a 2.6-pound Brian Brazeal rounding hammer. It turned out nice, but was a bit slow as I haven't made a hammer since YS 2012 and Chase has never made one. That was actually the first hammer I've made in my shop. Pictures of all should be up this evening!

Not so sure there will be a "big power hammer" installation any time soon! LOL My cieling height isn't high enough! :D Oh well, the forges, floor, and lights is enough for me! I replaced six of my 10 single 40-watt lights, with the four foot florescent shop lights. The light inscrease is AMAZING! The concrete is great...having the anvil and PH bolted down! I do have to sweep up now, but that's ok. Being able to roll the welder and torch around is also wonderful!

So, progress went on as planned today. First thing I did was cut the 3/4-inch plate, for the base plate under the actual anvil piece. I used the torch to cut it out and touched it up with a grinder. The marked out square is the drop piece. The other two were welded, end-to-end to form a 6-inch x 17-inch base plate. The anvil is 5-inch x 16-inch so the base plate will allow me a half-inch all around for welding. Clamped for welding! Welded with an extra piece of 1x4-inch x 1-inch stock underneath, welded over the seam for added peace of mind. I cut two clearence holes for the future hardy holes that will be in the actual anvil. The clearence holes were torch cut and oversized so I won't have to do any filing. Ignore the round hole! It came in the piece of plate, and is not the prichel hole. The prichel hole will be drilled after the hardy holes are drifted......otherwise it would probably deform during drifting! The legs cut! I went with 22.5-inches for the legs with a 9-degree angle. Daniel Riffe (one of the Young Smiths 2012, that I worked with,) gave me the measurements off of his striking anvil which he got from Brian. I actually got my numbers mixed up, so instead of 24-inches total hieght like Brian's anvil, mine will be 26-inches. (Didn't realize it until all of it was completely welded! Daniel also provided me with the angle measurement! One leg welded! (Pardon the mess! I'm also still working on cleaning shop since pouring the concrete!) Here are the feet! 4-inch square, of 5/8-inch plate, with 1/2-inch bolt holes in them. As usual, I got caught up in working instead of thinking, and forgot to get any between pictures here. I filled the legs with sand after they were welded on, tack-welded the feet on, welded on the leg braces, flipped the hole thing right-side-up, finished welding the braces, and finished welding the feet. Now I needed something to support the big piece during the hardy hole drifting process. I cut some holes in some scrap plate, welded some things together and came up with this. Then I welded some more stuff together, nailed some things together, and came up with this. Temporary, make-shift swage block! With the anvil piece on it, it looks like this! Finally, also notice that I welded handles onto the anvil piece to make it easy to.....well uhhh handle! The piece weighed 46 pounds before drilling, so I put two long handles on it with cross pieces welded to the handles to make it easy to turn and move. I also scrounged around the shop storage area, put an old squirrel cage blower back together, wired it, got it working, and will hook it up to the forge in the morning. That will save me having to hand crank for an hour or more heating up the big stock tomorrow. Chase should be here around 9:30 or 10 tomorrow and I'm hoping to have the metal up to temperature around the time he gets here to make things go faster. He's bringing a sledge hammer, so we'll have dual strikers to drift the holes. (Even though his sledge hammer is a puny little 8 pounder.......Go strike in the nursery Chase!) :D Once we get it drifted I'll cool it with the water hose, drill the prichel, and weld it to the stand. Then we are going to bolt it down, and forge a hammer on it! (Barring any unforseen complications!) Chase and I will both be filming the entire process so hopefully we'll be able to present the membership of IFI with a video of two strikers drifting 2-inch x 5-inch stock! P.S.! I also got the drifts made!

I put this together this morning for my old horizontal bandsaw. Since I bought the big saw (8x14-inch cut capacity,) I use this small saw only for super tiny stuff and as an upright saw. However, the old stand was shot, so I built this one. It is rock solid and at a nice stand-up working height! (Pardon the mess in the background. I'm still reorganizing since pouring the concrete!)

I've got some potential hammer makers and other students here and there, and I'd just about rather blow my foot off than let most of them strike on my anvil. (No offence to you potential students.) After spending over a month with Brian Brazeal, you realize the quality of the investment in a striking anvil. Mods: I know this is more of a "fab" job, but it is an "anvil" of sorts which is why I'm posting here. If I'm out-a-line please accept my apologies. So a quick run to the steel yard today resulted in these parts. Anvil: A 16-inch long piece of 2-inch x 5-inch flat bar weighing 46 pounds. Judging from the softness during drilling, I'd say it's mild, but the area I got it from is labled as "unknown." Base under anvil: 3/4-inch plate. I got a 12-inch square but I will cut it out and make a plate slightly wider and slightly longer than my "anvil." Legs: 2-inch square tubing, 1/4-inch walls. Supports for legs: 3/4-inch square tubing something like 3/16-inch wall. Leg plates: 5/8-inch plate (This was scrap I had in the shop.) All parts except for the leg plates, I bought today, and it totalled just over $40. I'll end up with about a 100 pound striking anvil once everything is put on. By the time you figure drill bits, cutitng oil, welding wire/gas, and grinding wheel you can say a 100 pounder for $50. This evening I layed out and drilled the two hardy hole areas. I will be putting a 1-inch hardy and a 1.25-inch hardy hole in it. The 1-inch is for standard stuff, but the 1.25-inch will be for making tooling for my shop anvil. It'll save wear and tear on my shop anvil. Drilling was fun. I drilled a 1-inch hole for the 1.25-inch hardy and a 3/4-inch hole for the 1-inch hardy. The 1-inch hole took 16 minutes. The 3/4-inch hole took about 40 minutes. Something is messed up with my 3/4-inch bit.....it kept hanging up really bad. (Sorry for the fuzzy pics. I'll try to get better ones tomorrow.) I also got the leg plates cut out with the torch. They are 4-inch square out of the 5/8-inch plate. I'll be drilling 1/2-inch holes in these for concrete anchors. Tomorrow I will try to get the legs cut, the base under the anvil cut out and put together, the leg plates drilled and attached to the legs. and then the legs welded to the base plate and braced. Thursday, Chase is coming over from Bowling Green Ky. to help drift the holes. Which means I need to make my drifts tomorrow too. It aught to be fun to heat that 2x5-inch stock! :D

LOL I do that too sometimes, but I always end up regretting it! :D Hey, also I forgot to ask, what flux are you using? The iron-mountain flux Brian is now distributing makes these welds a lot easier. (Having flat dies on a power hammer helps too! That's how I do mine!) Do you have a power hammer?

Hi! Nice job! I do have a couple of suggestions to take into consideration when you have a call to do this again. Always remember that it's the small things that count! It look like both your top and bottom bar are not quite straight. (They are really close!) They seem to "sag" slightly to the middle. This is not a big deal and when I participated in the YS 2012 trip with Brian, and here in my shop I don't stress about the frame being to spec, with 16th inch tollerances and such, but always try to get it close. The second thing I would point out is the leg area! The leg area should be a reverse taper form, meaning that (if you are holding the stock with the bird on the end,) you want the part of the leg closest to you to be smaller than the part of the leg farther away from you. (The top of the leg is larger than the bottom.) You have a regular taper form....AKA the apposite of a reverse taper! Here are a couple of samples I've done in my shop! They take about 3 hours start to finish. You can notice the neck on the second isn't all that awesome! Good job and keep at it!

Yeah! We've had goats and have been around them. I didn't figure an anotomically correct one was necesssary though! :D I did just use a coloring book drawing as a simple silhouette was all I needed/wanted. I went through quite a few options but the one I chose was the only one that didn't look too "cartoonish," wasn't too "detailed," and wasn't too scary looking either.

Yeah Martin I've got to get back to the blog! The concrete is great! I'll try to get a picture of the pad before we move equipment back. I ordered a bunch of casters so I can just weld casters onto heavy things and roll them back into place.