MC Hammer

Thomas - I'm relieved. If your anvils had carried on a conversation with you I think we'd all be concerned Singing, yes, but talking no. Hmmm, gives me an idea for a new thread.

I just can't imagine signing my anvil up for it to be blasted in the air from gun powder Me thinks they tied up the blacksmith and stole his anvil for this

I note you said you were going to use it for projects at home. Please do not hammer cold steel on the face (top) of the anvil or weld on it. You will dent the face considerably if you hammer or chisel cold steel on it. Anvils were made to be used with hot steel. That may seem like an obvious statement, but we've all seen plenty of anvils ruined by people using them in their garages for misc projects with cold steel. When people use them in that fashion they are more just a solid base to hit hard things on when it was really made to hit hot steel which is rather "soft" compared to cold steel. Don't grind it or paint it. If you must clean it, use a wire attachment to an angle grinder or a wire brush to clean it up, then wash it good with soap & water. After it dries, coat it with oil or boiled linseed oil. I use clean 5W-30 motor oil and it works just fine. The oil will keep it from rusting and make it look much nicer.

My uncle gave me a sign that holds true for many things. It's a triangle with the top point having the word "Cheap" and the lower points of the triangles having the words "Fast" & "Good". The poster says this: You Can Only Have 2 (meaning two points of the triangle), Fast and Cheap is not Good, Fast and Good is not Cheap, and Good and Cheap is not Fast. I find this applies to most things including building a blacksmith shop. You don't have to spend thousands of dollars on a shop, but I find this little bit of wisdom applies. I've tried to find ways around this little poster, but I always find it to be true in the end. I always end up on the "Good and Cheap is not Fast" end of things usually Oh, and I'm breaking ground on my shop this week finally! Memyselfandi builders are finally breaking ground on the foundation.

True Thomas! I've seen some smiths that do most of their drawing out fullering on the horn.

I have to wonder how many of the broken anvils were the results of improper usage. Someone later on using the hardy or pritchel hole to drive in a piece of metal with a sledge or just plain using too big of a sledge hammer on either the heel or horn. I recall seeing a rough equation of sledge hammer weight max vs. the weight of the anvil. In the vein of this thread I have to wonder if the smiths who fed their families with their anvils knew how better to treat their anvils than say people using them in a mechanic's shop in the 60's and 70's to pound cold metal on. Probably like anything, there were those that took excellent care of their tools and those that didn't seeing their anvils as something that could be replaced if needed. I guess I tend to fall on the side of the "Take care of your tools and they will take care of you" crowd.

When I bought my anvil for a guy he had a really old Fisher with 1/3 of the horn broken off. Otherwise it was in great shape. I've been thinking a lot about that anvil as it was a big one. It would make a good workhorse anvil with that thick face plate. I actually think the horn could be reground to somewhat of a point and it wouldn't look too bad. Let's face it, you use the face of the anvil much more than the horn so that Fisher could make a really good anvil.

That's really interesting Frosty. I've been trying to write stuff like that down so that when my family is going through my stuff after I've kicked-off someday 40 years or more from now that they'll know it's something special. I've enjoyed the few others that have some solid history on their anvils. Keep them coming if you have them.

When starting out don't forge on an anvil stand that is too small for the anvil. The whole operation can tip over on you and you can burn your finger almost to the bone. Don't ask I keep the hospital wrist band in my apron pocket to this day to remind me not to be stupid.

This is pretty interesting. Being a flintknapper, I have been able to master swinging a percussion tool and hitting a rather small area consistently to remove flakes to make a sharp blade.. Shifting to blacksmithing didn't pose a problem hitting where I intended and in fact I thought it was oh so much better because if I hit the hot iron in the wrong place or the results weren't what I wanted I can just reheat the metal and do it again. In flintknapping, a wrongly placed hit can cause irreparable damage, break the piece entirely, or take off material you can't put back on. I say all this because I think it is relevant here on two points: 1) hand eye coordination is vital in blacksmithing. We may feel that is a "duh" point, but those that lack it will suffer learning to move metal. 2) The master flintknappers I learned from always told me that you never change the angle of your swing and that it must remain a consistent arc and that you change only the angle of the piece of flint you are holding. I've learned that is not true and my masters still shake their heads when I adjust the angle of my swing to project the force of the strike a different direction through the flint. One of those things where I learned the rules so well I could see where they could be broken to gain better results. I think JLP is making that point in some degree in the fact that you change the angle of the hammer to move metal in different directions. I also second JLP's notion about the efficiency of experience. The master flintknappers I've known can take many fewer flakes to achieve a better looking result than someone with much less experience. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Making each hammer blow to it's near full work potential saves time, energy, and wear / tear on the the body. I've always felt crafts like blacksmithing, flintknapping and the likes are of the vein of working smarter and not working harder. That notion is hard to teach the younger generations that never popped popcorn on the stove or reheated food in the oven or had to get up to turn the channel on the TV.

Mine was dropped on a Coyote in the 70's. I have DNA proof form the fur that was still stuck to the bottom

Thomas - My lantern hooks are the standard "L" shape with a nice scrolled hook on the end that sticks out from the wall. I have hand hewed beams from an 1860's barn that I put up in my dinning room so the hooks look good screwed into the beams with flat wood screws. This time I counter sunk the screws so that they looked nice and flush with the surface of the forged piece. I could have counter sunk them on the drill press but decided it would look better if I did them with a punch so I punched the holes from one side then drilled the hole later. I couldn't find matching colored / sized screws so I found 4 (made two lantern hooks) that were the same size and just let them get hot in the forge after it was shut down then applied bee's wax and they matched the hook perfectly. I have to make one for the living room & bath room at some point but am thinking about one that pivots on a rivet so it can extend out when in use and back in when not in use. Dang this stuff is fun!!! What I like the most is that it's custom to what I need. JT - think about a drill or a drill press too. Both will help a lot, but don't shy away from learning to punch holes the old fashion way. I still have my first slug that came out of my first punched hole.

So far, all this is very interesting for those that have some history. Let's hear more is people have them!

JT, I only have a couple of years of forging down and <gasp> I haven't made a knife yet. I've been doing exactly what you plan to do, which is making hooks and hardware. In fact I just made two lantern hooks for kerosene lanterns we have in our dining room. We lose power 6-8 times a year where I live and the lantern hooks just saw service last weekend when we lost power. Don't think there isn't satisfaction in making the "uncool" stuff because there is. When the power went out, I knew my lantern hooks were made to specs to be just the right height and distance from the wall & ceilings with a hook at assures that it won't be knocked over. I definitely felt a measure of quiet & silent satisfaction seeing the hook function as planned. Try to find one at the big box store that's perfect for what you need. Could I make a knife? Yeah, I know I could and may get around to that this year but I'm having too much fun learning the other stuff. I think you short-change yourself if you just set out to make knifes and swords. There are plenty of guys here who've never made a sword that are super skilled blacksmiths. On tooling, I bought a Porter Cable angle grinder (much cheaper but not the cheap of the cheap) and I've been grinding stone axes and metal work with it for 8 or 9 years and it's going strong. You can find serviceable hammers new at Harbor Freight, just get the wooden handled ones and made the striking surface radius rounded (there are threads about this). Buy a few pairs of tongs to get you going and as your skills progress there is a product called Quick Tongs sold buy a guy that are fairly easy to make and much cheaper than buying new. Black Bear Forge did a nice video on them and how to forge them. Go to flea markets. My uncle lived in Fayetteville and worked on base at Bragg. There are a ton of flea markets in the area where you should be able to find tongs and hammers much cheaper than buying new. The belt grinder.......well, you may not need one right away. Better to save up for that and put the money you have toward an anvil in my opinion. When your skills rise to the level of knife making, you can then go out and make or buy a decent grinder. I think one should do some hand filing and angle grinding in order to appreciate a nice belt grinder when you get it. I still don't own a nice belt grinder. I want to build the skills to not rely on heavy grinding to make things.

Ever look at old pictures of blacksmith shops from the 1800's / 1900's? Visibly, few of the anvils in those old pictures look perfectly level to me. Then look at how many of those old pictures show anvils with sway in them. So your anvil is completely level, slight sway on the face will make the face out of level in the sway area which is almost always the sweet spot where you'll be doing most of your work. I guess I'm in the overthinking camp. Get it close and control the wobble, then get forging on that beautiful anvil. My old German Trenton has a flat bottom base without any concavity so it wobbled on a completely flat surface. I solved it with a bed of silicone, but before that I stuffed a large washer under one foot. My anvil face today is not perfectly level, but think of the variables I'd have to chase to fix that problem.....forged wrought iron flat base, perfectly flat stump top, perfectly flat base of stump, and a perfectly flat piece of concrete/ground/dirt floor. I think you could chase that rabbit for a long time trying to fix all those variables yet I'm able to forge flat pieces just fine with a good eye and good hammer skills. Get it as close as you can and leave it at that. Oh and don't grind it or weld on it. Your anvil is too beautiful to mess with it. All the smiths before you loved her as is and you are just her latest caretaker. They all fed their families with that anvil and didn't see a need to modify her one bit

Now those comment gave me a chuckle! It's funny how false histories get associated with things and people like Thomas touched on. That's why we need those anvils to start talking. Mine would be saying "Hey, yo, you haven't given me a beating in a while so get over here with some hot metal and pick up that hammer right there!" I was hoping someone would have a solid story of an anvil handed down a few generations. I have tools that my grandfather gave me that he said were family tools. One was a cobbler's hammer. It wasn't until our genealogy was done that it revealed he was in fact correct as his great grandfather was a cobbler. I use that tool to hammer in my brass tacks on the tomahawks I make (I'm not forging tomahawk heads yet - long ways away from that). Just used one of his awls to sew up a bear fur the other night. There's a satisfaction in using the tools of your ancestors, but the tool works the same as one but at a yard sale with no known genealogy.

Anyone have an anvil that they can trace back to its original purchaser or smith? I was thinking how cool it would be to own an anvil that you can say who has owned and used it on down through the years. I assume there are some family anvils that can be traced back into the 1800's at least. I thought this might be an interesting thread to open up. I sure wish those anvils could talk. I have one of the early German Trentons and I wish I knew the name of even the last blacksmith who used it. Anyone out there have a good history on their anvil?

None of the anvils I've ever seen have a completely flat bottom. A bed of clear silicone will have that anvil stuck to whatever you have for a base and you won't be worrying about any imperfections on the bottom. I did this with mine and it worked perfectly. I could have really used more, so don't be stingy on how much you put on the anvil stand. I recommend tracing the anvil base outline onto your wooden stump or stand and routering it out. This gives the silicone something to sit in and your anvil won't slowly try to slide off.

I would consider the following about your situation: Will your homeowner's insurance cover a loss if your forge or a hot piece of something starts a fire and burns down your house? Most policies do not and I think many insurance carriers would drop you if they found out you had an open flame that hot and large inside the structure attached to your home. I would personally never ever have my gas forge attached to my home. The risk of CO poisoning is just too high. I love to forge, but I love my family more. I have a perfect set-up in my garage that is under my house and is my basement. Cement floors, old chimney to connect a hood to, block walls.......but the risk of hurting or killing my family is just not worth it. If you do this, you will need extra ventilation. At least put a hood with a chimney pipe getting rid of most of the gases including the CO. Sure you could always wheel the forge outside, but what if the wind changes and blows all the CO into your garage? I wheel everything outside and close the garage door when I forge in my driveway. It's not ideal and you become a fair weather forger, but I don't worry about poisoning my family or burning down my home and that makes forging all the more enjoyable. It's why I'm building a dedicated shop. I have winter and cold weather here in NY so if I'm going to have ample time to forge in the winter I have to go that route.

Thanks everyone for all the good advice. I have great draining gravel in my next of the woods - gravel pits all around me. I hadn't thought about the corner being a pain in the rear as far as running long stock through the power hammer. I think that I'll just have to plan on cutting the slab some day if I get a power hammer. It's just too early for me to know where I'll want it some day. I guess I see it like the guy who wants to drop his anvil post in the ground before the concrete pour. What if he finds he doesn't like where the post is? I think I'll regret trying to figure out where the power hammer is to be located before I have seasoned as a blacksmith. I may never need one or I may really need one. I think the future blacksmith is yelling at me telling me not to box him in with a location now. Thanks everyone for giving me good advice. It's possible to plan and do this now, but I don't think it's the wisest choice.

So I've begun the process of building my foundation for my shop addition. I spoke to our local code guy and he approved my plan for the 20 x 12 monolithic slab design. My question is that I'm trying to think ahead with this design. I'm building a coal forge table to set my gas forge on that will easily be ready to accept a metal pan & fire pot someday if I decide to try coal. The other thing I wanted to do was build one corner deeper & stronger in case I get a power hammer someday. The slab will be 4 inches in the middle and 12 inches on the monolithic sides. My thinking was to go thick in that corner with extra rebar. I could really use some guidance.

Didn't the Ewoks have something like that Frosty? May the forest be with you

I think a few things come to mine here for me. How much forge welding or stick welding have you done? Years? A couple of times? You'd be trusting your welds to support your weight and the torque of you swinging like Curious George from tree to tree 50 feet up. I'm not sure I'd trust a weld unless I've had years of experience. So if you don't have confidence in your welds or welding abilities, then you'd have to find a solid piece of steel you could hot cut out some grappling hooks. The next thing that comes to mind is steel strength. I'd be worried about not making the hooks hard enough or making them too hard so that a little torque (like swinging from a tree) might snap a hook sending you on an interesting field trip learning the fun facts about gravity and the softness of the forest floor I think your question would be like a climber wanting to forge his or her own cams. Why do that when I'm sure there are grappling hooks / cams made by companies that guarantee their products for so many pounds and for the purpose they are intended for? I'm also thinking your scenario through and wondering how you'd get your grappling hook unhooked from the tree you just swung from? I'm thinking your hook would be pretty dug into that tree if it supported your pounds with gear as you swang from that tree to the other.

You also have to consider another factor. Many of us here look at anvils as a tool. So someone who is going to actually use the anvil to forge on will have a different price in mind compared to a collector. Collectors keep their anvils stacked up and pretty much just look at them and show them off while almost all of us here use them. I'm not taking a shot at anvil collectors, but there is a marked difference in what we each will pay for the same anvil. I'm with the $2 a pound group so if you are getting more than $140 by someone else that's pretty good for you as a seller.

Sandrion. When you wire wheel it, buy one to fit your angle grinder and only remove the rust. The brown patina will help with the rusting. Don't wire wheel it until it's bare metal. You don't need a lot of pressure, so let the wire wheel do all the work. Wear gloves too because nothing will remove your hide quicker than a jerk from the wire wheel. When you've removed all the rust, then wash it with soap & water. Dry it completely and then oil it. I used new motor oil and that works fine. After I forge, I just give the anvil a wipe-down with the clean motor oil. So far, no new rust has formed. Overall it looks like you have a decent English anvil - maybe even a Mouse Hole. After you clean it up you will find more indications of the English stone weight and a possible maker. Don't try to grind or level the face of that anvil. Use it for a year or so before even thinking about it. I've had my Trenton for a year and I used it as is and just now am thinking about using a flap disc touch up some areas on the edge that were chipped when I bought it. I stress THINKING because once you remove metal from an anvil, there is no putting it back on. Forge on that face for a good year before considering anything to do with altering it. The bench vises work great for fine filing work, but you'll want a blacksmith post or leg vise if you intend to hammer on anything clamped in the vise jaws. The post vise is specially built to protect the screw & box from the striking forces. Check out the whole topic heading here on vises for pictures and makers.