JHCC

No, you want people to know immediately how to pronounce it. "Is that 'Adam-R Forge' or 'Adamrrrrr Forge'?" I like "Legal Forgery". Clever and memorable.

I totally get where you're coming from on this, and there certainly is a lot of convenience to the easy fire-up and shut-down of gas (although even a gas forge can take some time to heat up to working temps). However, even if you eventually switch over to gas, a basic JABOD will (as others note above) get you forging faster and cheaper than just about anything else. I built my own almost entirely from pallets (and would have entirely, had I not had a sheet metal pan that was just too good for that precise application), right down to the gate valve on the back that manages the air flow. Total cost was a couple of bucks for screws. If you are at all available to take @Charles R. Stevens up on his offer to get together, DO IT.

Not Stealers Wheel's "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right,/Here I am, stuck in the middle with you"?

Do you have a friend with a workshop or a backyard?

Now you're just babbling.

I considered that when I was designing my stand, and I'm glad I went with identical angles all the way around. It made it a lot easier when I shifted from horn-on-the-left to horn-on-the-right.

Welcome aboard, Joakim. It's good to have you here. First of all, please let us know where you are! If you put your location in your profile settings, other IFI members will be able to find you, and some of the answers we give may well depend on knowing where you are. Second, read up the various threads about how to get started. In fact, read just about everything that strikes your fancy. Read, read, read, read, read. You'll learn a lot, and when you get around to asking the questions your reading hasn't answered, you'll know enough to ask good questions? The obvious answer to your question is to find somewhere to work and get some tools! Don't worry about getting a super-fancy setup with all the latest and greatest of everything. We have members who started out with a carpenter's hammer, a rock for an anvil, and a fire in a hole in the back yard! If you're creative, you can figure out a way to make do with what you have until you can get something better.

Although it would be great if question number two allowed us to rank our priorities 1–4.

I have a bunch of chain wrapped around the base of my portable hole, which is light enough on its own that the additional weight makes a significant difference, especially after I also jammed in a whole bunch of rail anchors. I never tried using chain to quiet the ring on my Mousehole, but attaching it to its steel base with a layer of silicone worked wonders.

Great story! Nice to get an anvil that suits your needs so well, and to have it be a family piece is that much better!

Nice job, @58er.

If all your books were under 13 years old, I'd be worried!

All threads eventually end up somewhere in the vicinity of Thomas's weird library.

Here's the mount on my vise, which is held to a vertical piece of 4"x8" I-beam by two U-bolts (the kind that hold leaf spring packs in place) and some purpose-made brackets. Nothing fancy, but solid as a rock. The I-beam is notched to fit the U-bolts: (This was before the brackets were forged; the top U-bolt is holding onto a piece of bent heavy wire.) Here is the top bracket, forged to hold both the post and the spring: And here are both top and bottom brackets, made from whatever came to hand, even if it didn't match: A little cleanup of the corners with the angle grinder, and Bob's your uncle.

When I was in the furniture business, I went to a customer's apartment and saw a similar Barbie (this one pilloried) that he and his girlfriend had been awarded for being "Best Couple" at a decidedly family-UNfriendly gathering. Let's just say that there was other furniture in the apartment besides what we'd sold him....

Sure, but does it come in a sling-back?

Depending on the height of the heel, you'd probably have to adjust the height of your anvil stand as well.

The little bit of stall mat that he put at the bottom of the socket is also pretty unnecessary: without it, the end of the anvil will eventually dent the top surface of the bottom boards to match its own shape.

@Christian N, take a look at this video, which shows someone building a stand for an anvil with stock very similar to what you describe in your original post. If I were in your position, I would very seriously consider giving this a shot: it's easy to build, can be made with minimal investment in material (especially if you can scrounge scraps of 2x4 from a construction site -- with permission, of course!), and is stable and effective as a stand. I would recommend putting a couple of different radii on the different edges, rather than leaving them as sharp as in the video, but this is otherwise a very good design.

And suddenly it all makes sense why TP asks "Traditional to what period?" every time someone says they want to do "traditional blacksmithing"!

Blunt peens are generally better than sharp peens, so you're good.

So, you thinking forge or tempering over?

Was this a punch you'd made, or one from elsewhere? I second what @Latticino says about a soft hammer; I have a ~6 lb hammer with a wrought iron head that I use for almost all my (solo) punching and drifting.

In the "It didn't follow me home" department, my son and I were in an antique/junk shop earlier today when I spotted an old 4-in-1 farrier's rasp and asked how much in was. On hearing the reply, my autistic-son-without-a-filter came right back with "Ten bucks? That's OUTRAGEOUS!" It was embarrassing as all get-out, but I can't say he was wrong.

Welcome to the wonderful world of haptic learning! Frosty's not the only one doing that!