AddictedToSwedes

I'm 1/2 an hour in. I must admit aside from some over dramatization I'm actually enjoying the show.

Here is a pic of the knife.

I am hoping to make it to a few functions in Longview, any word if there will be a hammer in this month? Or is the next function the conference? good point about the umm points. I will have to make a couple more tomorrow with the spiral outward.

The anvil is fantastic, we chained it when doing some work on the horn as it was incredibly loud and chimey. Previously I've been working on my cousins 200lb Peter Wright and there honestly was no appreciable dropoff in the lighter anvil. My hammer did cause me a hiccup, it was made in a very humid environment, working with it today with 5% humidity made the hickory shrink quite a bit and almost threw the head because of it I really appreciate the compliment on the quality of the work. Truth be told my cousin is the key to making things look so refined, having a forging partner that has some formal training is invaluable.

Well, my cousin and I fired up the forge for the first time at my house and really put it through its paces. We made a small pile of hooks for hanging coats and pictures, a fire poker, and went to town on making a 7" deba style chefs knife. I wish my belt grinder had showed up today, but it should arrive Monday.

I noticed that anvil as well. My cousin and I couldn't find anything about the maker, though we wondered if it wasn't a version of the rhino anvils.

Don't get discouraged. It took me roughly 6 months of searching before I found a keeper. I was fairly discerning and passed on probably 15-20 anvils that had signs of moderate wear and tear. What's funny is that I brought my anvil home and had a party a few weeks later for my sons birthday... Whilst showing friends the anvil and forge I had acquired, several of them remarked they had old anvils rusting away in their barns that I was welcome to. So... Moral of the story is sometimes you overlook the most obvious places to find anvils.

Yep, it was made this weekend in PDX by one of my cousins instructors. I pick it up with everything else next weekend.

Well, unfortunately the forge and anvil are sitting in my cousins garage until I can get there next weekend in my truck to pick them up. However, we do plan on making some leaves and bottle openers during that trip.

Well, I have two of the bigger essentials for my shop acquired... I figured it would be a while before adding on my forge...wrong. It popped up on CL a week after the anvil. The ad was fairly obscure but you could definitely tell it was for a good quality looking forge. So I sent the link off to my cuz and he began to freak out a little. Apparently I had stumbled across a Chileforge Habanero. So we got in contact with the seller and picked it up the next morning. One of the unexpected add ons was that the gentleman gave us the cart the forge had been used on...which was actually his old coal forge. So two forges for the price of one. The only downside is that there is a hairline crack in the refractory that needs to be patched, but we have plenty spare from when we built my cousins forge. Overal I was very happy paying $600 for the forge(s).

My user name is probably a bit akward at first glance, but it has a good reason. I have always loved the swedish steel, specifically straight razors. In fact I have had a decent sized collection of them over the years and have always been fascinated with attempting to make a few of my own straights. So when my cousin sent me a link to a craigslist posting for a Soderfors 150lb anvil two weeks ago I knew I was in trouble. A big hunk of swedish steel, it looked amazing (it also looked like about 2500 razors worth of steel by weight). It was a bit outside of the price range I wanted to spend, but when something speaks to me I generally lose rational and just buy the darn thing. And so I did. The anvil was in near immaculate condition with very little wear to it. The previous owner told me it had been in the family passed down father to son for 3 generations, but in this latest generation there was no son, and no family member that wanted it, and so I was lucky enough to start a second life of this anvil with the chance of it being passed on to my son. My cousin inspected the anvil before purchasing it and found that it had a 93-95% rebound with the 1" ball bearing test and that it had great resonance all across the face. In the end it cost $700 but came with a nice wooden stand and several hardie tools. So about $600 for just the anvil which wasn't too bad at $4/lb.

Here is a bit of the history and acquisitions I've made so far in starting up my workshop. Some background; I have a decent history in woodworking, having been something of a hobbyist for a while now. With woodworking Ive always wanted to create small embellishments, handles, hinges, etc.. but have always had a hard time finding local artists as I live in a town with no active blacksmiths. About two years ago my cousin started taking blacksmithing classes and it intrigued me greatly, but again with no local smith and no community classes I was rather stuck with limited options. Which all of this leads up to last October... I would like to say that I blame all of this on a post vise. It was my gateway tool, finding one for $20 that was lonely and shoved in a corner in an antique mall... It is a Columbia with 5" jaws and missing the spring at the time. The jaws lined up very nicely and didn't have any chips or gouges. I spent a bit of time cleaning the grime out of everything and put a thick layer of boiled linseed on it.

Thanks Frosty and Thomas for your words of support on paying in the ballpark of what the anvil is worth. I also updated my location information in my bio, is there another appropriate spot to introduce myself on the forums? I do plan on starting a thread to track the growth of my shop as I pick up my forge and tooling. Thomas - I completely agree on the size, I really wanted an anvil that would be portable and yet large enough to eventually make moderately decent sized pieces. Frosty - I actually hadn't heard of soderfors anvils when this one came up, but through the great googler I found several of your threads professing your love of these anvils... So you might call it your fault for convincing me that this was an anvil worth calling over :-). I should probably also mention my name is a direct reference to my General love of swedish steel (I use swedish straight razors).

First post so be gentle... My cousin and I decided a few years ago that we would get into blacksmithing as a hobby and something for us to do at family campouts and during the holidays. After much searching and patience I finally had the chance to get my first anvil. Being out on the west coast there is a fair bit of competition for quality anvils and they seem to command a premium as such we had been scouring the usual sources flea markets, antique stores, and estates sales hoping to find a diamond in the rough... Flash forward to this Monday when my cousin saw a post on CL for a 150lb Soderfor that was within 15 miles of us. The price was a little steep but came with a stand and a few tools. We figured what the heck let's check it out. It was in amazing shape, flat face with very little pitting/marks and well oiled and cared for over the years. We used a ball bearing and ruler to check its rebound and rang it a couple times with the hammer to see if we could hear any inconsistencies but none were to be found. I paid about $4/lb for it, but considering its condition I thought it was a fair price. The rust in the final picture is a bit exaggerated by the flash on my camera. Now i just need to finish off my forge...