MC Hammer

I bet she still works great even though her tail has been clipped. 234 was a pretty big German Trenton. I wonder how many other members have Boker Trentons? How about you show them off in this thread everyone! Let's see them, good, bad and the ugly.

It cleaned up really nice, great job bringing it back to working order. I have a columbian waiting for me to do the same thing, but I'm waiting for better weather to tackle it outside with the wire wheel attached to the angle grinder.

She cleaned up nicely. My old German Trenton had green and red paint, well parts of it left, and it was hard to get off. That face looks like it's pretty smooth on top with lots of life left in it. I like the color of the patina left when the wire wheel is used. Here's a picture of my Boker Trenton........look familiar

Joey - nice first anvil. If it's 178 lbs, you'll like that weight. Mine is 179 pounds and its just small enough to move around but heavy enough to be a good shop anvil. Like others have said, use the wire brush on an angle grinder to clean it up. Then wash it with soap & water, dry it, then oil it with either boiled linseed oil, or new motor oil. I used new 5w-30 motor oil on mine and it worked just fine. I give it a light oiling after every use and she's not rusted at all since cleaning. The wire brush mounted on an angle grinder preserves that nice rich patina yet removes all the rust. Yes, please use safety glasses while doing this. Those little wire bristles fly off and hurt like heck when they connect with bare skin or say your eyeball. The chisel marks are an issue, but I agree with others. Use that anvil for a year before you make any decisions about machining it. I personally never would machine the face of an anvil. You lose all that hard steel and it's gone forever. My anvil has some sway in the sweet spot and some edge nicks / chips - all from honest use by smiths who fed their family by using it. My face has polished up a great deal just from forging on it. Rebound has increased as well.

Thanks for the more correct info Black Frog! I knew someone out there knew more about all of the different Boker anvils out there. Great info. Do you think the "Germany" and "Made in Germany" could correspond with the same rough time that PW anvils were required to have "England" stamped on them? If so, that might be a way to separate out those to be later than the others. I also didn't know some of the very early Columbus Ohio Trentons had flat feet as well. Do you think those flat feet were just left over stock they had to use up from the earlier Boker anvils? I guess what I'm asking is that do you think it would be possible those are just left over Boker bases? Thanks for the info, we all learn a little something new.

Black Frog. My Boker Trenton doesn't have "Germany" printed on it and the "Solid Wrought" is not in a circle but two words one on top of the other. Since getting mine I've been looking at every Boker that presents its self and see 3 different types so far: Bokers that have "Solid Wrought" (not in a circle) below the Trenton mark with no "Germany" on them. IMHO these are the earliest dated ones. Bokers that have "Solid Wrought" in a circle printed below the Trenton mark with no "Germany" on them. I think these are mid-age types. I see a lot of them like this. Bokers with "Solid Wrought" in a circle printed below the Trenton mark with "Germany" marked on them. I think these anvils are the latest dating Bokers given the requirement to put the country of origin on them. I don't have any documentation to back this up, just a theory of mine since we don't know much about the Boker Trenton anvils. I'd love to hear other theories and opinions, especially from Black Frog. I could be wrong on all or some of the above. One thing is for sure, all Bokers have PW like feet. Find an anvil with PW feet and a Trenton trade mark stamped on it and you have yourself an early Boker Trenton anvil.

Interesting thread for sure. Having run my own flintknapping business on the side for 11 years, I can tell you that having base rates are good but you have to be willing to float that rate both ways. This applies more to pricing products for sale, but I do a fair amount of special orders that I set base rates for. I know product A takes me about X amount of time to do and I always have Y amount in materials so I know I always clear a profit of a certain amount. Where the trouble lies is with purchasing tools. You have to watch it or it's just money in and right back out. I also pay all my taxes including sales tax. For many years I didn't charge sales tax and just paid what was owed because my customers always seemed to be annoyed with paying tax at a show. Like others, I work a day job and have the business on the side. I have to agree with others who've said it's hard to set a shop rate when what we do is more art than industry today. If my shop hourly rate is $60 and it takes me an hour to make a fork and spoon, I can't charge $60 plus materials. That just seems high to the average Joe. The shop rate also breaks down on something like hooks. Say you can make 10 S hooks start to rust proof finish in an hour. Would you charge $6 a piece for them? Perhaps a shop rate works better with custom railings and fancy chandelier work, but common things it just starts getting squirrely IMHO. As an artist, I know I'll never get my time out of a piece so I set my prices to make a profit and leave it at that. If it were paying my bills, I might feel differently.

Great advice on the just normalizing the spring. I think I'll try heating mine up and putting the bend back in it and let it normalize then try it to see how it performs. With all that experience out there I'll side with it for sure knowing you all have done it and it works. Thanks!

Tongs are a hard learning project for a beginner. Offsets, drawing out, and lots of hammer control are needed to be successful. I'd have to disagree with it being a great first project. Maybe a 20th project after mastering some S & J hooks, chisels, punches and such. Heck even buying some farrier nippers, heating and straightening out the jaws would be easier than starting from scratch. I see them all the time at antique shops for cheap. You can do anything with shaping the jaws to conform to what you need. I will agree that there is something satisfying about using tools you've made. Hey that's what this forging thing is all about. Lots of mechanics that wish they could make the tools they need to work with instead of owing Snap-On a lot of money. Check out that guy who makes the kits if you really want to make your own. I just saw a bundle set on E-bay for $43.00. You get something like four tong kits for that price. I used his kit to make the scroll tongs and I still have the satisfaction of using a tool I made.

Dirt would be a bad idea at my place. I plan to heat the forge someday so every critter imaginable would be burrowing up through the dirt to keep their keister warm in the winter. I would think the moist dirt would also wreak havoc with your tools over time, but I guess all the old time smithies had dirt floors and they did just fine.

I must clarify...........The editing necessary on FIF eliminates the normalizing, tempering, and a great deal of the other work involved in making a correct knife. Quite a few people I know that watch the show and do not forge think it looks pretty easy. I think if you forge and watch the show you know it's difficult. I live out in the sticks, so as long as I'm not building a nuclear power plant, nobody cares so I don't run into the restrictions a lot of other folks do. I think the thing that bothers me is insurance. If they can wiggle out of covering you they will. I once argued with an insurance adjuster because the sunny side of my roof had lighter colored shingles than the side that sees no sun. He claimed half were newer than the other and had some concerns about writing the policy. Only after offering to get my ladder out and have him climb on up with me so he could take closer look did he decide his slick dress shoes weren't up to it and changed his thinking. Yeah, that's the kind of guy who shows up to your forge fire and says "Sorry, page 942 of subsection 10 part A-6 clearly states that we don't cover.........." Or they cover the loss then drop their coverage telling you to shop around.

I've been thinking heavily about using the floating brick system for the floor of my forge someday. Because of where the build will take place, I won't be able to have concrete poured there. My regular shop is an old single wide trailer so the forge added on to it will have to support it's own load (trailers frames can only support the load they were manufactured with). I debated on building a dedicated shop somewhere else, but this trailer has electric, bathroom and heat right there. Why recreate those things? The structure is insured as an outbuilding because it's a workshop separate from my house that I use to flintknapp in. I'm thinking the floating brick floor would be way cheaper than a poured concrete pad. Any thoughts on there of bricks vs. concrete on the cost?

Nice job on the steak turner.

As a fairly green blacksmith, I think it costs a lot to get started the right way. Sure, I know, I know, you can make a coffee can forge & find a HF hammer then hammer on a sledge hammer head as an anvil to technically forge but not really. Just like a guy can buy a hunting license, grab any gun and go out in the woods....but is he really a hunter hunting? Yes and no. It's taken me over a year to get a decent anvil, tongs, forge and the basic hammers. Sure, a hammer, an anvil of some kind, one set of tongs, and a heat source is all you need to heat metal up and pound it, but you can only go so far with that. True, the tools do not make the smith, but I think the right tools help a guy learn the skills quicker and safer. Probably the other thing that's tough is that people think it's all easy to do. FIF makes a guy think he can get started making knives so when people see an S hook or some other hardware item they think it was easier than a knife thus should not cost very much to purchase. A lot of work can go into a nice set of hinges for a chest, but people just think that because they can go to their local hardware big box store and buy something that LOOKS similar for $9.99 that your hinges should be the same. I think it takes another craftsman looking at what we do to understand and appreciate the work involved. I find myself looking at antique things and seeing the welds and things and appreciating the long dead smith who made knowing exactly how he went about making the thing I'm looking at. Maybe this doesn't apply to most, but I have to haul all my forging stuff outside to forge. I'm happy to do it, but it is a craft that really needs a dedicated space. If I could sneak out to a dedicated forge building and forge for 2 hours that would be great - rain, shine, snow. It's just been too cold to forge this way up here in NY this winter. Other than that (and I really had to push away all the things I just think are great about blacksmithing just to come up with these) I love everything about this craft and love learning new things each time I forge.

I've seen some smiths form the stem and then hammer it into the hardy to get the right shape & fit. Am I to assume this is a bad idea? The only thing I can think of is the risk of breaking off the anvil heel, but I would think hot metal would not do this. Maybe someone here can explain this a little bit and even relay some horror stories of why this isn't a good idea.

Some with experience arching springs and have done this before should discuss how to heat it and quench it if needed. It might help Tex and I also have a Columbian I just bought that could use the same treatment to the spring so I'd love to hear the process. I just figured I'd heat the spring up to a good yellow, bend it, and quench it in vegetable oil then remount. Is that the correct process?

Exo - I too am ok with people modifying their own anvils to suit their work, but I wonder how many new to the hobby are out there taking their fine anvil and having it machined, welded up etc. because they think it will perform better? I'm thankful for the voices here that post constantly to just leave the anvil as it is when you are new and work hot metal on it before thinking about "fixing" anything. It saved me from "fixing" mine when I got it as a newbie. I saw one guy who does something to the anvils he sells that takes every bit of patina off them to the point where they look spray painted silver. I know none of this affects how the anvil performs, but it really makes the anvil look bad. Like a checkered suit, it works just fine but man does it look odd.

Billy - don't tease us, post pictures of the whole anvil if you have them Are those weld repairs on the waist? I think what some are trying to convey is that age has nothing to do with an anvil's ability to produce great things so in a sense it doesn't matter. I think for most it's just a healthy curiosity as far as age and rarity. Usually the first thing people ask me is how old my anvil is so it's nice to have some information to give them. What I wish we could do is know how many and which blacksmiths used the anvil before each of us bought them. That to me would be a great bit of knowledge to have, a sort of genealogy for your anvil. I suppose some family anvils have this, but my Trenton is a big question mark being an early German Boker anvil. If anvils could talk........

Nice score at a decent price. Ones like it have been listed elsewhere for hundreds of dollars which is on the high side. You got it for a bargain though.

If I had to buy just one pair of tongs it would be to handle square stock (V -bit). Square can hold round stock as well. Keep in mind, there is a person who sells quick tong kits out there that are by far much cheaper than buying a finished pair. He cuts the shape out of square stock so all you have to do is heat it, bend it and make it into what you want / draw out the reins. I'm not advertising for this guy, but I made a pair of scrolling tongs from his kit and it turned out much better than if I'd tried to do the whole thing myself. This short cut doesn't teach you the offset skills you need to know to make your own from scratch, but it sounds to me you just need a few pairs to get going. Otherwise, I echo the thoughts of others in that you will need a lot of tongs for different sizes to hold your stock tight.

I'm just not understanding the need to fix every imperfection with an anvil. Not every chip and ding needs to be filled and perfected for the anvil to produce beautiful work IMHO. I would hate to use an anvil with sharp edges personally. What I did was find a nice square 40 lb piece of steel and mounted on a post. It's perfectly machined flat and has sharp corners. I can use this for flattening primarily but also for a sharp edge. My anvil has a little bit of sway in it, but it doesn't really impact my work until I want to flatten or perfectly straighten something, then I just go to the steel block for that. I have to wonder if all the welding fetishes are just a pride thing like "Hey look at my nice perfect anvil"? or "I need a perfect anvil before I start learning to forge." The way I think about it is that my Trenton was made in the late 1800's and probably 3-4 smiths before me used this thing. Except for the very first guy who bought it new, the other 3 or so just forged on it ignoring the chips and dings of the previous smiths knowing no real abuse happened, only honest work. That says to me that they didn't really pay much attention to these blemishes and that it was expected from a tool that was used to put food on the table. So.......I just became the next caretaker using this anvil so if it was good enough for them it's good enough for me. I just cleaned her up and started forging on it.

Not a bad thing to have mounted in your garage to hammer on things or you could use it for forging as a cut-off tool near your anvil so you don't mark up the face of your anvil. Otherwise, yeah ASO for sure.

Nick's New York Style Pizza ...............on a barbi

Who would have thought something like I joked about really existed? Thanks Charles!

Any opinions out there about what will happen when FIF goes off the air and all these tools come to market again? I'm afraid a lot of these FIF guys will still tuck their anvils in the back of the garage because they think someday they'll give it a shot again so the same ones who paid $1,200 for 150# anvil will end up hoarding them until their children sell it in the estate sale. I personally can't wait for tools to come down, but as I get better at forging I say to myself more and more "I can stinking make that, I just have to sit down and do it."