Foundryman

This followed me home, my dad's company threw it out because it's old and they are a modern, high-tech company. So naturally they threw away this perfectly good, English made, rock solid pedestal drill so they could replace it with a modern, "made in china" Draper one that's intended for hobbyist use. Apparently the new one is already causing them problems because there's play in it and it's just not as accurate or powerful as the one they threw out. Still, their loss is my gain.

That is stunning, great combination of materials, hope you're pleased with it!

Thanks for the tip! I'll sure remember to do that!

After looking at everyone's work for the past couple of years I thought it was time to post some of my own. I say my own, but this knife was made by myself and my girlfriend on our 5th anniversary. We're about to move into our first place together and decided it would be a great project to do together. So our anniversary saw us lighting the forge and hammering this out, myself holding the stock and leading and my girlfriend, sledgehammer in hand, striking, this is the result. Statistics, before you ask: 400 layers of 15n20 and Uddeholm 20c, triple normalised then heated to non-magnetic and quenched in pre-heated canola oil, not the most technical heat treat but one that I'm familiar with and have had success with before. It was then tempered at 200c for two one hour cycles. The blade is 8" 1/4 overall length, 5" 5/8 cutting edge, just under 1/8" thick at the spine, tapering to 1/16" an inch from the blade tip. The handle will most likely be curly birch and bog oak, though I have some beautiful oak burl and some stabilised spalted beech that are also options. Also my girlfriend made herself a pendant with an offcut

This really is one of those things that is so much easier when you're taught it my another Smith in person. I tried and failed several times to learn to forge weld, then I took a course and not only learned to forge weld but made my first Damascus billets that same day and haven't looked back! That being said, to answer your question, grind your steel clean, flux it when or just before it starts glowing and make sure it's good and hot before attempting the weld, bubbling borax which smokes when you remove it from the fire is the sign that I look for. Good luck!

​We've had this where I work, we send stuff to Australia once or twice a year and we have to buy specially made wooden pallets made with certified wood otherwise the whole shipment will be rejected by Australian customs. It seems a little odd to us that a country where just about everything that walks, slithers or crawls carries deadly venom or giant teeth is worried about a bit of dirt!

hey the credit goes to you for uploading high quality photos, that and my new phone has an amazing screen! I'm with nobody special here, put some grease (maybe graphite grease for the mess factor) under the horn and heel and that anvil won't go anywhere without mechanical assistance. My own anvil is the same weight and was all myself and my brother could do to lift it onto its stand and that was without having to contend with grease! Whatever they choose to do, I hope they don't lose it, it's a beautiful anvil!

Well its English made and if I'm reading it correctly it's 454lbs (you can see 4.0.6) stamped on the side, at least that's what it looks like to me, other than that, it looks very similar to every other English made anvil of the period so without a makes makers mark is probably unidentifiable.

I purchased my belt grinder from Downland Engineering, a British company that have a few "off the shelf" model belt grinders at different sizes and prices but will also custom build one more suited to your needs if necessary. I've had absolutely no problem with mine, it works amazingly well for either sharpening blades or hogging off metal/wood for shaping, bevel grinding or whatever, it gets used every time I'm in the workshop. They did have a mix up when they ordered the motor for my particular grinder and ended up getting sent a 2hp instead of 1hp for the same cost which they then passed on to me so it's an absolute beast. I chose to order from Downland Engineering based on feedback from the British Blades knifemaking website, they appear to be used by and come highly recommended by a number of British knifemakers, evidenced by the 6 month waiting list when I ordered mine!

That anvil looks perfectly usable to me, don't grind the poor thing, it looks to be an older anvil to my (untrained) eye, just keep it as it is and use it for what it was intended, it got into that condition through use after all, and if it was good enough for it's previous 'smith it'll be good enough for you. If you want one with a nice flat face and crisp edges keep an eye on ebay and be prepared to travel a little and you'll have yourself a fine anvil in no time!

That anvil looks almost flawless, looks like there's a small chip on the far side and possibly one on the near side too but looks pretty good to me. I'm not sure what the prices are like in your area but that's been listed for 19 days and not sold so I'm guessing the price could be a little high maybe? Go see it, test it, try bargaining with the seller and if you're happy parting with the money, bring it home with you, it's value is whatever you're willing to pay for it!

Cool that I see work from at least two IFI members featured there! Nice to see our craft getting some attention!

I think this is what you mean, though it doesn't show an anvil with two hardies and a step, think "soho pattern" is the closest to my own anvil.

​I don't know of them no but I'll check them out! I'm from London (one of your DFLs I'm sorry to say) but my parents are from Kent (Cranbrook and Hawkhurst). They might be one of the oldest foundries in the country but the one I work at is older, the oldest manufacturing company in Britain to be precise!

The salvage yard you got that anvil from wasn't in Biddenden was it? If so I believe I may have your anvil's brother! I have a 4cwt double hardy hole anvil that I bought there for £180 two years ago which also came complete with flaking black paint, though mine isn't a Peter Wright as far as I can tell. It seems quite a coincidence if you did get yours from the same yard! Either way, great anvil you have there, I wish you many hours of happy forging on it!

Wow that is a beast! Possibly your biggest yet, how do the dimensions compare to your "nose-job" anvil? You'll be making some of the non-British community here sick with that price tag!

I was watching these Owen and thought that you might be after them too, they're beautiful hammers but the price was too steep for me. Any information on the anvil that came with them? It looked like a 5kg brooks from the sales photo.

I can confirm that alldays and onions did make anvils, or at least had them made on their behalf, there was one on UK eBay in the last month, no idea about size or quality, it looked cast to me but that's all the information I have and its the only one I've ever seen.

You might find this video of interest, Alec Steele drifting the hardy hole in his striking anvil.

That's a woman's hand there frosty, the nail varnish gives it away, so your size guesses may be a little optimistic, other than that, it looks like a good anvil in good condition, I'd buy it if the price was right.

​My colleague volunteered at Ironbridge when they were first getting set up for producing wrought iron and has experienced the whole process from puddling through to refining the pig iron with their huge hammer and then rolling the iron, in fact we still have (at a guess) 1/4 ton of Ironbridge wrought in 3" square by 6' lengths at work which he helped to produce! It's amazing to hear him talk about the processes involved and the stories of how they re-learned to make wrought iron. Sadly I've heard that they no longer puddle iron at Ironbridge anymore, they just weld up and re-roll old wrought stock.

​In the UK there are actually seems to be two separate categories of anvils on eBay, there's the regular forged anvils which tend to go for reasonable prices if you look at what anvils have actually sold for instead of what they're listed for, usually £100-£150, regardless of size. Then there are the cast steel Brooks anvils which seem to go for a premium, £250 for a 1 1/2 CWT one for example. For whatever reason they seem to be much, much more desirable, a 3CWT Brooks sold for £450 recently, whereas a (by my estimate, based on supplied dimensions) 5+CWT Peter Wright with cast iron stand failed to sell (twice) for £485. The prices in the UK do seem to be creeping up also, but there are plenty of bargains to be had out there and our prices are very reasonable compared to what you guys in America and Australia seem to be paying.

We use pure iron at work because we have found it has very similar structural properties to wrought iron, at least for our purposes. We use it for repairing or modifying wrought iron parts that have to deal with high stresses (bell clappers), so in that regard I would assume it would be fine to use for the body of an axe or anything that you'd use wrought iron for really, that's not to say that other steels wouldn't do the job just as well or better though!

I asked a few questions at work today and came up with some information. Our supplier for pure iron has it available in a number of cross sections and it's even available in sheet! I have a web address for them but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post it here so unless I hear otherwise, I wont. However if anyone is interested PM me for it. Anyway, the stuff we use at work is 75mm "gothic square" (square with rounded corners from the rolling mill), it comes in 1000mm lengths and is £250 per length + tax and postage. Translation: Nominally 3" square, 3' 3" and $385 + tax and postage.

We get through a couple of hundred lbs of pure iron at my place of work each year. We only ever get it in 3" square section maybe 3' long and I'm not sure what other sizes our supplier stocks. I can find out who our supplier is and pass on the details if you wish, they may be willing to ship to the US though the cost would probably be prohibitive.