SnailForge

What are you going to use for the base?

I once thought the same thing. But it turns out that usually for that price, you get a chinese anvil shaped object that is made from simple cast iron, and which will crack or dent with heavy work. You could get very lucky I suppose, but around 2$ / pound seems standard for an actual anvil.

My simple charcoal forge gets hot enough to burn a thick bar of O1 like fireworks. See the other thread in this forum where I posted my charcoal fire. You want to use charcoal, not brickets. Brickets will burn hot until their fuel is spent. Then they will crumble to clay dust and smother your fire. But you have to line the BBQ with clay or something else. Otherwise a lot of heat will escape. And of course you risk burning a hole through the sides of the BBQ

Building a forge is dirt cheap and dead easy. Especially since it can all be made of scrap. All you need is some sort of lining to keep in the heat, and a hole through which to blow air. Besides, I prefer charcoal to gas. I hate the idea of a forge fire right next to a propane tank.

This is how I built my setup. http://onikudaki.be/content/54-building-forge It works very well. recently I modified it a bit and opened the back so that I could work on longer pieces. It gets hot enough for forge welding.

I usually let it burn out and use the smaller fire for little things, like heating some stuff to a couple hundred degrees for some straightening. Or I use the last heat for annealing stuff and letting it cool off slowly in the furnace. You can't really stop it without dousing the charcoal with water. And predictably, pouring large quantities of water in a forge is not terribly gentle on the lining. :)

I just contacted the seller to inquire if it is still for sale. We'll see. I am not about to pay a lot of money, but for a nice price I'd buy it because I love old things. The oldest straight razor in my rotation is from around 1830, still as good as new and I use it almost every week. :) That said, I wonder just how I am going to explain this to my wife...

The thing that springs to mind the most is that the habaki is not orthogonal to the blade.

I saw this for sale locally. It didn't get much bids. It looks to me to be pretty old, given the design. Am I right?

Thanks all. I'll update my profile shortly. It's true that anvils are not so expensive here. Around 1 euro per pound more or less. Only the little ones (100 pounders and less) cost more because they are popular. It's funny how in this internet age, there are still things for which you depend on your location. Shipping an anvil would be problematic.

No, Belgium. A lot of stuff that ends up here is from France or Germany. That makes sense of course, seeing as how we are a tiny country squashed between 2 large countries with heavy industry. Do you have any idea about the timeframe in which my anvil was made?

Hey Guys, I joined a couple of weeks ago but didn't quite find the time to post. I'm a hobbyist bladesmith. I've been doing this for a couple of years now. I started out with an anvil made of a piece of railroad track with a hardened plate welded on top of it. it weighs something like 30 to 40 pounds or so. Last year I decided to buy a real anvil that would be heavier and a bit more versatile. I spent some time looking on the local classifieds websites. Most anvils are either very heavy (400+ pounds and very expensive) or around 100 pounds (and sold within seconds). I finally found a 250 pound anvil that people somehow missed and made an offer of 220 euros, which got accepted immediately. The seller was even nice enough to take the ad offline (preventing higher bids) until I could pick it up. Imo, 250 pounds is the sweet spot, because it is as heavy as possible within what 2 people can move without needing a forklift. I've been using it for a while now and it works very nice. It doesn't ring all that much, but that could be because atm it is still standing on gravel. I still have to finish the floor of my backyard smithy and I don't have a pedestal yet. The horns have no damage, and the face is still flat, with only a handful of minor blemishes. the face is roughtly the thickness of my finger. say 6/8 or something like that (I didn't measure). On the front are letters. Just below the face there is a number '572' which could be a serial number or such. Below that there is something the shape of an eye, with inside something I can't really make out.B3 or 83 or something else. It is really vague because at some point it was painted over. I should probably try to trace it with paper and pencil And then underneath that is just says '120 K No3 J' The 120 stands for the weight in kilogram, No3 is probably the type of anvil. No idea what the J stands for. I haven't looked for other markings hidden at the bottom or such. I have no idea of the origin and age of this anvil. Any information would be appreciated. Not that it matters from a practical pov, but it would be nice to know more about the object that is the heart of my workplace. What do you think?