hotanvil

Well another Vermonter. I have not been here for a while but get back here every now and again.Not doing a whole lot of blacksmithing these days I mainly make knives

Very nice work

Thanks .. appreciate info. I looked at the KMG seems well made . I'm sure the xtra's will add up bigtime

Used would be fine Surprised there isn't a buy-sell on this forum

I have a Grizzly. Got it nearly new for $300 from Craigslist. It came with about $150 worth of belts and a $70 10" wheel thrown in. Great deal; good machine.

The only modification I have made was to install a ceramic platten... well worth the effort.

That said, a new Griz to your door will be $574

If I was in that range and couldn't sqeeze the extra for a KMG, I'd get a Coote and find a motor somewhere.

If I could scrape up the big bucks (1k+), I'd definitely go KMG.

One of those small hammers brought up in this thread is mine. I have built more than a few air hammers. My bench model was designed for spring swedges.I have a collar that locks in place around the anvil and then you can lock spring swedges into that. I built it when I was doing stuff with 3/4" rope swedge and did not want to have to keep changing things out from my regular airhammer

I use vegetable oil or olive oil when I quench blades. Its a good light weight oil and smells better than motor oil.
Have to keep the other half happy you know :^)

What they have said is true. The normalizing is really needed when one forges the blade to relieve the stress's from the forging process.You hate to find those stress's when you get to the hardening phase quench it and it cracks or bends or worse yet shatters

When I first started forging all I had for an anvil was a 1" thick piece of plate steel RR spiked down to a stump. I had been forging all day and when done happened to stick my hand out to lean on the stump and put it down on the plate to discover it was quite hot. Thus began Hotanvil Forge