Satchel & Trunk

I second joining up with the Illinois Valley Blacksmith Association (IVBA), they've been really helpful for me and you can get plenty of beginner's instruction at their various events.  If you're up north near Wisconsin you can check out the Upper Midwest Blackmith Association (UMBA) as well.  In my experience, any local guild will be a bunch of old-timers who love blacksmithing and want to pass on the love of this art to anyone who's interested.

Next month if you can make it down to Pontiac, IL (it's only a 90 minute drive south of Chicago) there will be a huge regional blacksmithing conference for 3 days from July 17-19...and they will have beginner's classes on Friday and Saturday! 

Here's a link to the event:  http://www.umrbc.org/Home.html

There's also Fine Line Creative Arts Center up in St. Charles that does more formal blacksmith instruction, but you'll be paying more and you have to sign up months in advance before the classes fill up.  I'm sure you can find more places like that about if you search these forums.

I've only heard them referred to as dies when they are the impact parts of a treadle or power hammer.  Since those are pieces of the larger machine and (generally) don't really look anything like a hand hammer, I can see why they'd be called something different.  But yeah, a hammer is a hammer is a hammer...

Yeah, my Peter Wright has a P stamped on the foot.  It might be an indication that the anvils were sold through another distributor rather than directly through Peter Wright, I remember seeing an old receipt posted on Facebook where a shipment of anvils was purchased by another company to resell and all the anvils were given the same stamp to mark them as such.

Committing some thread necromancy here, but this is the only one I saw regarding National Supply Company Anvils.  Currently on ebay there is a ~150 lb. anvil for sale that the owner is calling an ATION anvil:

Clearly this looks to be a fabled National Supply Co. anvil, and I'll concur that there is very little information on the internet about them.  The stamps would lead me to believe it's a cast iron body.  From the photos and from the abuse to the face, I'm theorizing it's probably somewhere between a Fisher and Vulcan anvil in terms of quality?  Also, are those chips in the side in danger of being delaminated already? 

Hey divermike,

I saw this originally when you posted it and wanted to make it but just couldn't find the time.  Would definitely be interested if you were going to do another one, or if you just wanted some total newbs like myself to come and watch you work and occasionally toss beers in your general direction (although afterward would probably be a better idea for that...)

Just got back from day 1 of the conference, as you said Pep was a very good presenter and very good at forge welding.  He only had one weld all day that didn't stick...which he promptly slathered in enough flux to spray all over the front row while power hammering it out.  When I sent him a heckle he said, "I know that guy, that's Thomas Powers!  I don't know how he manages to know everybody wherever I go!"  And then everybody got to hear the story of him with a broken hand trying to hold a piece of stock and work a powerhammer at the same time.

A really good time, wish I could go back tomorrow for day 2! 

Hey gvmnt45,

I'm a fellow Chicagolander hailing from Oak Lawn, so pretty close to you.  I'm still what you'd call an aspiring smith, slowly building my own propane forge and keeping my eyes on Craigslist for a nice cheap starter anvil...and doing my research all the while.

I signed up with UMBA (Upper Midwest Blacksmithing Association) and they're having a winter conference this Saturday in South Beloit just along the Illinois-Wisconsin border...I'm looking forward to meeting some actual flesh and blood smiths in person and seeing what gems they can bestow upon me (both in knowledge and cheap anvils!)  If you're interested you should check them out too, and I'll toss you a craft beer if you're into that sort of thing.

Here's the UMBA website.

Happy Smithing!