Sam Thompson

The scale is easier to brush off if you do it as you dip the hot piece into water, it sort of blows it off.

There's a very odd shaped tool on top of the anvil... Any ideas? CAST IRON ANVIL WITH STAND AND HAMMERS on eBay (end time 23-Sep-09 21:06:53 BST)

Quite a useful tool as it is.

Before you give yourself any bad habits it is important to learn the basics. It's easy to learn how to make one or two things... It's like learning a tune on an instrument, if you don't study the reasons why you are playing the notes in that order then you will only ever know one tune. If you start from the simplest of tasks then you will be able to work out how to do anything. There are many basic 'how to' book available, most of them have some sort of axe to grind (they are often promoting 'alternative lifestyles' or re-enactment).The series of books produced by the British government in the '50s was not intended to sell new styles of tools or change the way people think or work, merely to provide a good grounding in the subject.The exercises in here may be anachronistic but they all teach valuable aspects of technique: The Blacksmiths Craft Good Luck!

I'd heat treat them after fixing the handles. I'm assuming that you're talking about swages to use under a power hammer?

Anthracite is no use for forging.

Forge a ball with a distinct neck on the ends of the spring, drill a hole in the swages and stake the balls into the hole. This is how they used to be fixed for heavy use as it allows a certain amount of flexibility and absorbs some of the shock.

You should upset at bright yellow heat and use the tail (red) end of the heat to straighten before you take another. Putting a short taper on the end of a bar lets you drive the centre into the stock and speeds up the initial part of the work. Some swage blocks have depressions which produce the same effect. Upsetting with the hot end upwards will produce a flatter 'Tee'-shaped deformation, whereas resing the hot end on an anvil and hitting the top tends to produce a bulgier effect. Upsetting is a great demonstration of how hot metal moves more than cold; localising the heat is half the battle.

A plastic water or pop bottle with a lengthways slot makes a good pickling container. They often have ribs which support the work and the cap can be removed to allow liquid to be easily drained.

Are you making an anvil stand?

ANVIL on eBay (end time 23-Aug-09 14:56:49 BST)

In the larger of these types of fireplace there are sometimes stone seats at the sides and cavities in the walls for storing dry goods. It's amazing how often the fireplace equipment was left in situ when the open hearth was blocked. In this country the next step towards civilisation (from mid 19th cent) was usually a built-in cast iron range with an open fire and a variety of ovens and hot plates controled by choke plates in the various flues. I have the impression that the occupants didn't trust 'progress' and wanted to keep their options open. It's a common job to remove these and reinstate the lovely draughty, inefficient and dirty open fire. It's usual after a couple of winters to go back and fit a modern woodburner.

A floor mounted press will do everything that a bench mounted machine will do and then do more stuff as well. A bench mounted press takes up far more valuable space on the work surface than just its footprint, drilling long bars can mean clearing months worth of stuff from the bench; swarf gets everywhere and there is only limited free space around and under the drill table for odd shaped work.

Work your way through the exercises in here: The Blacksmiths Craft

It looks like a a stage prop.

It's quite safe if you use the heat from a coke fire and NOT propane. The latent cheese in the gas will make the handle shrink.

If you need a textured round bar hammer it from square stock and vice-versa, merely 'distressing the bar looks cheap (in the American sense).

I never bother with antique dealers; they may know the price of everything but they know the value of nothing. They are parasites.

You're doing it the wrong way; you should keep the wood cool and heat the hammer.

The face on very big anvils is usually wider which can be awkward if you want to draw material back from the far edge, the bicks have a larger and more ungainly diameter and the hanging end is often too thick to get between elements of a forging. The hardy hole(s) are too large for most readily available tooling. They are awkward and occasionally dangerous to move around.The price rises out of all proportion to the usefulness above about 3cwt. Unless you regularly work stock over 11/2''dia (with a striker) these things are best left in the factories they were made for.

If I were you I'd buy a normal (21/2cwt.ish) sized anvil for around

I've found that people often quite like the hammering noises; they think it's old fashioned and rural. It's angle grinders and drilling that annoys them along with those odd random clangs that we all make from time to time.

So you don't really want to contribute anything, you just want to sell some stuff?

Four hundred quid seems a bit OTT to me!

Make sure that you have a large dead flat surface or a set of supports that can be accurately levelled with plenty of clear space around and adequate lifting/positioning gear.