Jesse Killion

MC Hammer, am I understanding you correctly in that all flat bottom German Trentons are pre 1898? Mine is stamped solid wrought though I can't off the top of my head remember if the weight is between the legs or not. I have never been able to find a serial number. I assumed someone ground it off or some other oddity. I will have to get pictures this evening, assuming I remember.

Thomas, that is a good idea putting the tongs up higher to keep the warm bit end up. As I get closer to making a dedicated tong rack, that will be something I keep in mind. As for the 4 wheeler idea, offroad blacksmithing seems like the wave of the future!

Thank you all for the kind replies. Frosty, the hammers sit... ok. I'm certainly going to need to spend a bit of time forging with this set up to see how I operate around the new stand, though i may end up redoing the looped area to put the hammers there, mentally that is where I'm leaning. The issue I'm running into with running the hammer heads perpendicular to the sides is the anvil feet block the ability to do that at a few of the offsets. Will definitely need some tweaks, fingers crossed they stay on the minor side. Thomas, JHCC part of my design of this set up is to have it be "semi-mobile". my forging area blocks in my "kids" 4 wheeler so i need to be able to move it all out of the way when they've earned a ride. Not at all the ideal set up, but it's the only set up I have at the moment. The more I think about the tongs at the forge, the more I very much like the idea, I may have to do some staring at that area and try and figure out a nice way of holding them there.

I agree with you Frosty, that the offsets are much more elegant looking, but the space can be limited a bit to get hammers side by side. For now the setup works well as my hammer "collection" is small. I always keep my water bucket a half step away to help remind myself to be dipping my tongs and tools in between heats. I've been using mostly mild steel or A36 as my tong material of preference, that is only due to what is on hand in the scrap bin at my full time job. And don't you worry about my helper, he has goggles and gloves when he wants to come swing hammers. I don't do the swinging while he's around, he just uses a little ball pein hammer that makes minimal noise so I'm not worried about his ears yet. I will certainly pass along the "HI!"

I originally intended for the hammers to be on the metal loops, but a slight oversight on my part has the tongs there now. I have yet to get any hammer time with the new stand so time will tell if I prefer my oversight or change to where I had intended the hammers to go. Hopefully I get lucky and have one of those Bob Ross moments....

This is my first post and have learned alot from all of the knowledge on here, thank you all very much. I picked up this #100 trenton a few months ago and slapped it on a stump stand that quickly turned to crap due to the stump being very old. A decent portion of the once flat bottom chunked and chipped off until it rocked and rolled, rendering itself rather useless. Over the weekend I made up this stand with a good friend from 2x12. I'm a fabricator by trade so i made the hammer rack and other pieces at work. I'm going to need to to a little reengineering of the hammer rack as the hammers just fall thru which is why the hammers are in the 2x12 offsets where I was planning on putting my tongs. Anyway here is a picture along with my little helper. Constructive feedback is always appreciated.