Avadon

Check out this idea. I needed to move my Gladiator around (it weighs 715#'s with the stand). It's a little shaky until you get it up onto the jack but once it's on the jack it very solid for moving. You could even take my design and improve it some. #1. I put a + shape set of wood with some metal rails under the anvil. I use the palette jack to raise the whole anvil up. (this is a mini jack I got from Grizzly. I'd be lost without it) #2. I put some steel blocks I welded up under the plus shape. Then I lower the jack #3. I put the jack under the 3 anvil legs #4. Now I move it to wherever I want to move it and reverse the steps above to dismount it. If I were to build any sort of integral casters that, for example, lower down with a screw they would rattle every time the anvil took a blow. A way out of this might be some hard points welded to your anvil stand that accept casters that can lower down with some type of screw mounting. I'm sure that wouldn't be to difficult to engineer. I haven't done that myself as I just don't move my anvil very often. Would rather just have inside anvil and outside anvil.

Lotsa of things to consider here. You might want to ask your counties building department and see what they say is allowable on the walls. Why mess with the? Well if your shop burns down some day and it wasn't built to code you may have a total loss on your hands and your insurance carrier won't pick it up. If your renting then you definitely should be more than careful working in someone else's shop. I've worked in numerous shops with drywall and they always get dinged up from carrying in the stock delivered from the steel yard. The sparks from grinding always spray the walls and leave nasty discolorations. That said, drywall was invented for fire prevention and to compartmentalize fires and stop them from spreading quickly. If there is no electrical in the walls than there isn't as much of a need for the drywall. Most shops run the electrical on the outside of the walls in conduit chases vastly diminishing the threat from an electrical fire which is one of the most common ways houses/shops go up. If you are planning on doing the electrical outside the walls than I'd imagine you can probably use other materials for sheeting your walls. Plywood looks great and hold up to a lot of oopsies especially when it's covered with tin or stainless, of course this is quite expensive. Usually the metal is just around where the forging is being done or where heavy grinding/sanding is done. How long are you going to be in this shop? If it's a year or two than I wouldn't invest much, if it's the rest of your life than spare no expense. I'm building a shop addition 35'x70' to my 720sq feet standing shop and I plan on doing the works. Exterior rigid foam, spray foam in the decoupled walls and sound clips for starters. I intend to use nice plywood inside instead of drywall (i'll be looking at it to the day I die) and cover it with stainless in some areas. The plywood is also easier to screw things like conduit to as well as steel piping for compressed air. Paper back Fiberglass isn't bad if your on a budget. Just make sure you install it very carefully as gaps on top or bottom or even on the sides diminish the effect of fiberglass immensely. I heat with electric and WOW is it expensive. I really need to get a wood stove. My neighbor has an old school one. The heat that blares off of that thing is impressive! Even with NO INSULATION it can heat up a 20x30. They are pretty crazy. You can even buy brand new ones for $700-1500 range. If you think that's expensive than you should see my $400 power bill for one month of the winter. The one advantage electrical has though is I can turn it off instantly and go off into town without any fear of burning anything down. With a fire you do have to make sure it's either out or fairly well controlled before leaving it unattended and there is always a concern that maybe something has happened. I've heard of builders doing exceptional insulation and having a constant 50dgs year round in their shop without any heating at all. Just make sure if one builds something like an air tight thermos that you have some fresh air circulation or heat exchanger in use. You definitely need fresh air in a building, especially a smithy.

For a much smaller price you'd be better off hardfacing a large vertical column of steel. You'd have a rockwell in the 60's and it would be virtually indestructible.

I only did one pass on the S7 Martin. The hardfacing is probably only an 1/8'th. Seems like more than enough when I use it.

You definitely have a lot of strong fabrication experience stromam. You'll probably find out, like most people do, that creating your own anvil is as expensive, if not more expensive, than buying a real anvil in the same weight category. That said, projects like these can really test and hone your skills. I kind of wonder how the ring is going to be since your first slab isn't very tall and now you have to build up slabs underneath. It's probably ultimately far easier to do a Brazeal style anvil http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/12883-brazeal-anvil-rising-4-plate-anvil-with-pics/ as you don't have to weld blocks to each other. The steel itself is one large chunk on end. The brazeal anvil linked is 240LB block, but it's through bolted into a cartridge shape that really makes it one massive piece totally 377#. In the end, the brazeal style is probably far less work and if you want you can grind die forms/shapes into your 3" or 4" plate. You can also hardface the top like I did, though it's not terribly necessary. The advantage of the block sitting on end is the enormity of mass you gain directly underneath the face of the hammer. For all intensive purposes, hammering on the brazeal anvil is like hammering on my Nimba Gladiator. They both have the same amount of mass seen underneath each hammer blow. Welding that hardy hole in.. what an impressive feat. I'm way to lazy for that, I would have just welded it to the outside lol but you sure did a beautiful job on it. Can't wait to see how you like. If your this persistent you'll probably have several anvils, like me. Some you built and some you bought. Some you like more and some you like less. When you get to making a stand, give me a nudge. I've got a few links on here that I think you might really want to see. Basically some of the best ideas from some of the best posters on shape, design, build, etc. of Anvil stands.

Thanks all for the advice. I'll let you know if I get stuck again :)

Yah that was actually my first idea. A portaband with some sort of vice grip clamp. I seriously thought they made a portaband attachment for grabbing to vertical piping in order to use the portaband as a cut-off saw, because this is a very common way this saw is used. However after searching for a few weeks and asking around no one knew of such an attachment. I was rather stunned as I thought I had seen them. I guess it was just a good idea in my head. lol Someone needs to make an attachment like this. It's a million dollar idea.... a heavy duty rigid arm that clamps onto any size pipe and allows the portaband to swing over the area clamped making a true 90dg cut off. A cut perpendicular to what it is clamping. I put a bid in on a 44-S. They said the roller ones are cleaner cutting but I think that also means much slower. The 44-S rigid pipe cutter has 4 cutters. Also has two handles. I'm guessing that is about the best bang for the buck.

Yah I really looked into the portaband option and I think it's a great option if your on the ground cutting things. Being up in the air the stability issue and trying to get a really flush level cut seemed difficult. Also havnig to go back and possibly grind with angle grinder in my area (a super fire prone area) is somewhat of a no-go to me. I put a bid in on one of the ridgid's. :) Wish me luck. Thanks

Well I do have on average maybe 80-100 of these (figuring that most of these probably will have to be cut) out of the 124 installed. Is that a lot? Or should they go pretty quick with just your average cutter? Because right now i'm looking at the Ridgid 44-S but maybe i'm way over thinking the job? It's a 4 cutter with two handles. I'd just like to make the work easier rather than be out ther wrenching on each one for 20 mins. But maybe that's not really the case? I just don't have enough experience manually cutting pipe this way.

Does anyone here have any experience using heavy duty pipe cutters? I have qty 124 sch40 1.5" galv pipe set in concrete on my property and I want to cut them down so they are all 7.5' tall. There are just so many pipe cutters out there. From one cutter up to four. Seems like I can get most of them for $200 and under but I just don't know what is best or easiest. I was thinking something that had two handles would be good because i'll be up on ladders/catwalk doing this. I already tried sawz all on a test piece and I really dislike the look and feel of cutting them with that. I want a really clean cut like pipe cutters do. And yes I know this will take considerably longer ;-) I even saw the Rigid 2A, 42A, 4-S, etc. I'm probably going to resell it after i use it to recoup my money. But I might need it for some considerable time which is why I don't want to rent one. Any thoughts?

This hammer is soon to be all the rage with blacksmiths worldwide. Can't wait to order mine! Lol

The really great thing about this design (especially if you have a welder) is when you ding the anvil into really bad shape you can just re-weld in all the divets with S-7 and sand it back to perfection. No more crying over cracks or hammer marks. I wouldn't dream of welding on my gladiator or welding on other various expensive anvils. But something like this is really a great way to experiment with no worries about damaging the anvil. Go chisel happy or practice with the sledge. No big deal if you miss. lol Just weld it in the next day and sand it back to flush. Oh also someone asked above.. .. no I don't mig or stick.. I tig weld. 200Amps. For welding anvils something more powerful than that would be even better. However if you preheat the really thick parts and bring everything up to temp than you can get away with less amps.

Looks good! The only thing i would fault you on is that you did not tyvek up to the roof on the ends. (or maybe you did but it didn't make the picture). That is a common mistake, but a big no-no. I've read about this on several building pages. If water does (and it usually does) come in from the side from driving rain it can undermine your siding and bring in water and moisture that will seep in under your siding and a good bit of it will come in between the housewrap and the osb. This is probably not as likely if someone has huge overhangs on the ends of their building. However it looks like you have very little overhang on the ends the building. This would be my concern, that water will come in and you'll notice it in the way of de-lamination or staining on the osb. So I would keep your eye out for that. When you are housewrapping with a Tyveky or Typar you always go up to the top of the gables. It's that second piece of housewrap that lays over the top of the ground floor piece that acts like a shingle and stops water from getting behind the housewrap. Depending on how much of a hassle it is you might want to fix it before you see damage. Best of luck on the new smithy.

I have a 20x30 too.. like frosty.. with 10' ceiling. Rafters are 24" O.C (on center). The walls are 2x4, 16" O.C. This was only slightly larger than my basement shop in mass. I'm so tired of this size. It really doesn't allow you to walk around the tools or have any breathing room. 600sq feet just isn't very much once you get an anvil or two or three, a forge, a 4'x8' steel welding/fab table, compressor, post vise, bandsaw, drill press, welder, toolboxes, belt grinders, bench grinders, etc. etc. it fills up so fast that you'll be soon swaying your hips around to not take a body blow from one of your pieces of equipment. And what I listed is pretty common even in basic home shops. I've been site clearing all this summer tearing down trees and lifting out rocks in order to build a shop much closer to 1200-1500 sq feet. Then I should even have enough room to build a small room inside for airbrushing and painting. The second story ontop will be an office for design and drafting and a living space. I've learned from past shops that you can literally never go to big. If your worried about heating or cooling use cheaper forms of heating, like wood or pellet stoves, solar heating, or invest in better insulation while building (somethign I intend to do). Since it's a shop you can always heat and cool only when you are in there. Which makes it much more affordable than a home you are always in.

That seems to make sense. I suppose in modern welding though your combining additives from rods so that's not a good correlation. Those welds could be in fact stronger due to the rods. But in forge welding I can understand where you're coming from. The weld is only as good as the welder ;)

Anyone ever have any idea on whether forge welding is stronger or weaker than one piece?

Don't they also sometimes use foam board under the slab before they pour? or is it just around the outside?

I wonder why they forge welded a lot of those odd shapes on halberds in medieval times. Probably due to no bandsaw and no drill lol

Looking over that technique.. it's actually an obvious and rather simplistic way to do it, but you wouldn't think of it right off hand. Interesting that after the first 2 bends you actually almost have a jewelers double bick stake. What actually is preferred for the strongest edge/blade.. a single piece of metal that has been bent a lot into tines or three individual pieces that have been carefully forge welded? Which technique is the better way and less likely to break?

I would die to peak in those books. The second one I would probably have to take a loan against. At 161$ that is probably the most expensive book I've ever had an interest in purchasing. When are presses used in halberd making? I thought they were used in making damascus and other pattern welded steel but beyond that I don't know much about them.

Thanks for the tip.. I found the pages. ^_____^ :D

Can you give me an idea how presses are used to shape solid masses? Is it literally just put in hot steel into the press and use a hydraulic jack or is there much more to it than that and what is the advantage of a press over hammering?

I guess mastering forging spears is a grea starting place and then practice forge welding them together. Making a fork seems rather straight foward. Take your tool steel and bend it and forge the tines. But when you get to 3 tines, one way or another you have to forge weld. Does anyone know of really good books specifically on spears and pole-type weapons?

How do you insulate around the outside of the slab? How would I know if the slab that I already have poured is insulated? We don't get a lot of snow here.. because I'm right near the cove pallisades in oregon. About 2300 feet. I'm north of redmond oregon and I'm in one of the lowest spots in central oregon. Any lower and you have to head up towards madras and warm springs. So when we do get snow it's just a sprinkle.. sometimes a few inches and then it melts in a day or two. We do get cold though.. we can have 20dg days. So it can get colder than a you know what. lol Breaking up a 600sq foot slab to repour it though woudl seem like a huge waste.. espcecially since I spent a whole month on my hands and knees sanding the slab with a belt sander and then hundreds more caulking the joints with an epoxy and then sealing it all with two different sealers. Ughh.. I guess I could always leave that area un-heated and just heat the other 2-3's. I think a mixture of things would be great to keep it heated. Heat is probably more important that cold. You can survive without A/C.. it stinks and can be miserable in a heatwave... but you can't make it through the winter without heat. Trying to pick up a piece of metal that is cold soaked in a shop that is 20dgs.. well that pretty much halts all progress. Thanks for your help guys

Yah how do you drill/mount to the floor once you have that tubing in it. I guess you can't unless you know exactly where everything is. Or you put it in the dirt. With it in the dirt do you have to worry about heaving your concrete. Seems like if you had something hot under there every winter that at times also gets cold that you have a greater chance of breaking your concrete and heaving it?